Double Bind
by Guardinthena
Summary: The Autobots and Decepticons are forced into an uneasy alliance to discover a source of Cybertonium to save their lives. As the Quest drags on, it becomes apparent to Megatron that the Quest will fail as long as they are fighting each other. He makes a proposition that they take their aggression out on another source-Optimus Prime's conjunx endura, Phage. Lemon-OpxOCxMeg
1. Chapter 1

**Double Bind**

Author's Note: This is my first attempt at a proper lemon fanfic. I desperately need to overcome embarrassment at writing such scenes out and was finally coxed into posting this in exchange for an ending to 'Prisoner' by Tennoda here on fanfiction. Her stuff is incredible and I highly suggest reading her fanfics!

The time line for this universe is based immediately after Resonance. The idea for the background for this story centers around an issue that comes to light in the later chapters of Resonance, but an issue that, the more and more I write Resonance, just can't see panning out in this direction anymore due to certain Autobot replicating devices. So, this is an alternate history to an alternate history.

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Chapter 1,

Alone together in the war room of the _Ark_, Optimus Prime and Megatron stood poised on opposite ends of the holomatter table, the cool blue hologram of the Sol System an irritable optic sore for the Decepticon Commander. The imposing mech's black hands gripped and flexed around the edge of the table, staring blindly at the display as Megatron tried desperately to contain his rising frustrations. "I will excuse your presumptuous arrogance this time, Optimus Prime." Rumbled Megatron's gravel-tone voice pass flashing denta. "Perhaps you have forgotten, or it is the lack of Cybertonium in your system, but I was a miner before a warlord. I know the conditions for which most minerals are to grow and where to be found. Yet _you_ continue to argue with me."

"We tried your way." Optimus's speech was as clipped and constrained as Megatron felt, which was to say as tightly compressed as a coil ready to spring.

"No-" Megatron bit back, nearly growling the word as he dragged his response out. His fingers dug into the metallic edge and squeezed, shoulder struts rolling as he rocked forward and then back onto his pedes. He desperately wanted to lash out, physically, vocally, violently. Optimus Prime's behavior was going to get everyone terminated if he did not start listening to him. "I told you the specific conditions for which Cybertonium needs to grow and you _compromised_ my intel by demanding we explore Venus and then Mercury because of their volcanic activity and _neglected_ that neither planet was ever large enough to collect the necessary minerals during planetary formation and undergo the seismic stresses required for Cybertonium's very foundation."

"My logic was sound, Megatron. Increased volcanic activity-"

"Does _not_ equate the crystalline formations that we _need_!" That metaphorical coil finally snapped under the tension as Megatron gave in to his temper and cut Prime off as he yelled back, denta flashing as his fist slammed down on the holomatter table. As abruptly as the mood had taken him he suddenly did an about face as he pulled his fist aside, glancing between it and the indentation he had left in the table. In the tense but brief quiet between the two, the Decepticon Commander inhaled sharply and exhaled with equal force through his external vents. "Do you even care that your conjunx endura was nearly terminated by your faulty logic?"

The sudden quiet inquiry and 180-degree turn in conversation struck Optimus hard. The Autobot Commander jerked off the holomatter table and straightened to his full towering height. "Phage understood there would be risks exploring uncharted worlds."

"Say what you really mean, Prime. I can practically hear the subliminal message."

Optimus Prime's battlemask clicked as it shifted downwards and held. A gradual narrowing of his liberty blue optics belied the Autobot Commander's irritability with the conversation. "There is nothing subliminal about what I said."

"Of course there was. It goes like this: the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. Sound familiar? It certainly does to me. Same old speech tressed up in a different format." Before Optimus could even form one syllable Megatron pressed on. "Has she become such a liability to you, Prime? And so soon. What _would_ she think if she heard you just now?" Optimus glared across the holomatter table. Megatron just took the heat head on. Realizing Optimus was not going to rise to take his bait he set his jaw. "That was always a key difference between you and I, Optimus. You believe in false illusionary concepts of justification for your suffering and those around you."

The Autobot Commander may not have made a disparaging noise, but the sharp narrowing of his optics to mere vibrant slits of liberty blue light reinforced his shortening patience. "And you are strictly for the needs of the one." the Prime fired back.

"You misunderstand me, Optimus. You always have."

"I know I understand you perfectly."

Straightening to his full impressive height, Megatron began his counter. "If you fail to focus on yourself you will get nowhere. Not everyone is so lucky as to be chosen by a higher power for a greater purpose. Most everyone else has to struggle to better ourselves to get what we want and double to _keep_ it."

"Where is this conversation leading, Megatron?" said Optimus Prime suddenly, tone dry as he glanced aside as if to check the wall for a clock that just was not there. "I have other appointments to keep."

Megatron sneered. "None could be more important than with _me_—_Discussing. __** Our.**__ Direction!_"

"What direction is that, may I ask? The direction of our Quest or the direction of this invasive conversation?"

"If you think that _this_ has been invasive..." Before he could finish his sentence, Megatron left it to trail off as Optimus crossed his arms over his chassis. The whole of the Autobot Commander's figure radiated a lack of tolerance for further shenanigans.

Gauging Prime as if in battle, Megatron began working on roundabouts to throw Prime off from his true target. Always a spot of turbofoxing. In the past, Megatron had spent entire days and longer devising elaborate and pointless red herring ploys just to draw Optimus off on some useless matter here while the real threat was elsewhere. Every little minute had always mattered. To that end Megatron knew he had to approach this subject carefully. The counter production to his own better judgment was that he felt rushed, his very wants, usually so clear, were undefined. More defined than urges, but still an intangible desire. He was not use to it.

Reevaluating his stratagem, frustrated and livid, Megatron stormed away from the holomatter table but went no where. "Optimus, I have come to the conclusion that this..." his black hand gesticulated to nothing in-particular as he spoke, "delicate alliance will fall apart before our Quest is even achieved unless you and I find something _constructive_ to fight over."

Over the holographic display of the Sol System, Optimus's optics widened but remained narrowed. "Your logic is nonsensical."

"_That!_" Megatron cried triumphantly, pointing across the table at Prime. "That right there is _exactly_ what I am talking about."

The Prime glared.

Megatron tried for a disarming smirk but it only served to set Optimus further on edge. "Think about it, Prime. We need to find either a new source of Cybertonium or Cybertron itself. As much as I prefer the latter, locating a dead rogue world free spinning through the cosmos uncharted for four million Earth years is a task best left to astrophysicists and luck. It could take the better half of a vorn and we only have two Earth years at best."

"Your _point,_ Megatron?"

"I have already stated my point. You and I need to fight over something—anything _rather than_ our Quest." It was out of long hard habit as Megatron tracked Optimus Prime's every movement with the keen interest of a starving cyberwaste-wolf. Noting and logging every subtle shift and the agitated restless twitch of Optimus's trigger finger. "It seems to me that we have spent so long fighting each other that it is interfering with what matters most. Namely, if we continue to bicker and argue with each other over a mere direction to search for Cybertonium, we will get nowhere. Then, we will all terminate. Well," he corrected, "everyone but the new generation forged on Earth. The Constructicons, Combaticons, Stunticons, Aerialbots, Dinobots...Phage. Surely you noted how many more Decepticons there are in that list."

"What do you suggest, Megatron?" There was a thread of laconic humor in his voice even as he tossed aside the subtle threat. Optimus's tone was at the very least similar to what he would use when they were taunting each other in the midst of combat. Like an old nervous tick, Megatron set his jaw. An eon old urge rose up in the silver, black and red trimmed mech to wipe the timbre right out from Optimus Prime's voice. Fighting back the urge took an impressive feat of willpower of Megatron's own. "We engage in friendly competitive challenges? Such as taking out our grievances out in the shooting range?"

Megatron gave in to his temperamental urges, if but a little. Just enough to jostle Optimus Prime off his proverbial high chair as Megatron strung him along, choosing to gradually turn over breadcrumb trails to perk his interest. "I was thinking something more...recreational. For the both of us."

The Prime's optics narrowed suspiciously, but a contradicted easing of the tension in his muscle cables belied his curiosity. "I do not follow."

"Phage."

The internal machinery of Optimus's systems whirled and settled into place as he jerked back as if Megatron had struck a physical blow. "What?"

As the conversation dragged on, Megatron became more and more certain of his own desires. Naming Phage the was root of it. Discovering that allowed everything else to start clicking into place and Megatron just went with the flow of it. Deciding to turn over all of his cards, he quickly followed it up with a second metaphorical punch. "I want her."

With all of Optimus Prime's natural strength magnified by the power of the Matrix coursing through his system, he was more than capable of ripping the holomatter table out of the floor and flinging it across the room to get at Megatron on the opposite end. The very act of which was exactly what it seemed that Prime's body tensed to do. It was only Optimus's infallible iron will that held him back, poised on a knife's edge. Optimus began to splutter. Outrage won out over good will. The inevitable dark tremor of his deep resonate vocals was the only predictable course of action left. "You _what_!?" Prime yelled.

"You heard me." Megatron pressed infuriatingly cool and even toned, continuing to needle. "I. Want. Her."

"Where on Cybertron did this come from?" Prime demanded with a menacing growl of his engine.

That was a very good question. It would be a cold day in the Pitt when he opened his tangled emotions and thoughts to Optimus Prime, especially when Megatron was struggling to understand everything himself. After everything that had happened in the last few years on Earth he should hate the femme. On more than one occasion Phage's wily temperament had blinded Megatron to her true intentions and left him open to her trickery. The small femme had managed to deceive _him_, of all beings. _Him_. Lord Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. She had made a fool of him and yet he could not hate her. The opposite, in fact. He had become intrigued with the femme. He refused to name the emotion as an infatuation. Perhaps it was the same emotions that kept him from terminating Starscream outright, a curiosity to see what she could do next.

And still standing across the war room awaiting an answer that Megatron felt was complex and undefined, stood an Optimus Prime who he had only just told that he wanted his femme, as broad as that could be. Megatron decided to be as terse as he was known for. "I have missed her company. The cave-in on Mercury made that apparent to me."

That was not a lie. Trapped alone with the femme for hours after Windcharger had blundered his metal bending outlier power to extract minerals for sampling in the cave had left them little else to do—except talk, when the mood struck them. Mostly Phage had remained resolutely quiet, but the little they had discussed when they did had reminded him when she had gone by another name and wore his badge. If the cave-in had taught Megatron anything it was that beneath Phage's new visor her optics were still standard Decepticon red. Translation—Ratchet was having a hard time of scrubbing the Decepticon coding from her systems.

As expected, Optimus had not liked the answer. Any answer, Megatron knew, would have displeased the Prime.

"You stay away from Phage!" This time Optimus found the compromise to his inaction. The tension across his body snapped. Fists clenched, the Autobot Commander started around the table for him. On the other end Megatron did not flinch, merely coolly observed his long time adversary as he circled around the table and stormed down on his position. "Have you not done _enough_ to hurt her!"

"If I was to stay away," Megatron began infuriatingly calm and deadpan, managing to give off an aura of one of Kaon's scheming pit dragons of legend, "she would be terminated right now, despite her regenerative capabilities. _I_ saved her on Venus, Prime. And again on Mercury after the cave-in. Where were you? Up here on the _**Ark**_ where it was _safe_."

"And _here_ is the loop." Muttered Optimus Prime darkly and more to himself than Megatron just as he closed the gap between them. Once on his position, Prime addressed Megatron loud and clear as they stood pede to pede. Two towering mechs that stood poised to their full height. It was an ancient dance of theirs as they began to slowly circle one another, every trade of barbs a heated exchange of tug of war. "First, we agreed previously that one of us had to remain on the _**Ark**_ at all times. Secondly, as you have _just_ stated your expertise in locating Cybertonium made you the best candidate to lead the ground forces. So do not try and pin cowardice on me. Thirdly, Phage is capable of looking after herself."

"Helping herself straight down a loose gravel cliff into an acid lake you mean." Megatron was quick to shoot back.

"She was only down there as part of Huffer's team."

"Really?" Needled Megatron. "I thought perhaps your _young_ conjunx endura wanted to take her first step off world." Lazily Megatron eyed the thin trails of smoke that began to pour from Prime's smokestacks and could not help the smug grimace that stole across his mouth at Optimus's darkening thundercloud glare. "Is the age difference a sensitive topic for you, Prime? I wondered but, is it that you took her because you were feeling your own age and needed to live vicariously through her?"

"You want to talk age Megatron? You should look in a mirror."

It was a pitiful comeback and Megatron knew it.

"The two of you are still resonated correct? What was it like feeling the rush of her emotions? Exploring new worlds has become such a dull affair for myself after reaping countless for five million years."

"Can it, Megatron."

"Can it? Really? Are you a protoform now, Optimus Prime?" Megatron's head inclined marginally to one side and smirked. "It is her, isn't it? When Elita-One was still functioning you had more patience. And prose."

After eons standing as each others arch nemesis, both balancing as polar opposites on a perfectly balanced scale, each could say they knew exactly the right kind of wrong thing to say to set the other off. Megatron's final needle was the last punch to set Optimus on the attack. All at once Optimus's fist was drawn back and ready to fly.

"Strike me," Megatron began suddenly, his tone inciting the gravity of his latest threat. The Decepticon Commander's visage was nothing but droll as he idly observed Prime's fist freeze within inches of his face. "And I will send out a communique over the Inter Decepticon channels that the Alliance is annul and to seize the _**Ark**_."

The joints of his fingers whined and quaked under the protest of the force with which Optimus was restraining himself. "You would not dare." Optimus said after a long length, "You need us as much as we need you."

"At the rate we are going I could disagree all day."

Flustered, Optimus jerked his fist back to his side and snapped off, "We will not fight over Phage, Megatron!"

"You do not have a choice in the matter, Prime. I have already decided we will. And, " he added, "we already are."

"This is ludicrous!"

"Ludicrous has been your action's. Not mine. You pushed me to this."

"I did no such thing!"

"Compromising my intel has made me look bad in front of everyone, but not you. You have been sitting around in the captains chair giving orders while I have been pedes to the ground aiding the Constructicons and your pathetic excuse of a surveillance team seek out Cybertonium! Every set back we have had falls back to me directly!"

"Huffer, Perceptor, Beachcomber and Windcharger are the best in their fields."

"Certainly." Megatron's heated gravel vernacular was dripping sarcasm. "Huffer's reliable as long as his depression does not seize him up. Perceptor is the best at wandering off. I had to set the Seeker's to track him back down on Venus. After that blunder I again had to assign Starscream to tail him on Mercury! The damn mech needs a tracking chip, a babysitter, or best yet a pen to keep him safe! Beachcomber completely disappeared at the first sign of trouble on Mercury and Windcharger is only so handy as causing cave-ins! Some fine picks, Prime. I noticed that you left Phage out of your rooster, even though she was there. But at near a third of a vorn she certainly is not a master of any field."

Optimus broke off their engagement and stepped back, fists trembling at his sides. Mirroring his actions, Megatron drew back but the smirk on his mouth gave away his sense of a winning streak. It was Optimus who was the first to break the tense silence between them. "This meeting is _over_."

"It is _over_ when you stop ignoring my input. You are going to get everyone terminated. What is next, Prime? We return back to the Grand Central Station in the Asteroid Belt and scour over the markets for Cybertonium again? And allow Smokescreen and Swindle to get everyone in trouble—_again_? You need to quit compromising and do as I say. We need to find a Saturn-sized terra or cyber planet and that means we have to leave the Sol System."

"And where _exactly _are we suppose to start looking for that, Megatron? How about I spin in a circle and pick a random direction."

"That would be more productive than what we have been doing for the last quartex!"

Optimus squeezed his optics shut and rubbed at them. "We require proper provisioning for long distance voyages. Even if we were to acquire the supplies that we need we would have to risk stasis to prolong our condition and thereby leave the entire crew open to hostile forces."

"Are you trying to tell me the _**Ark**_ would not reactivate us if a threat was detected?"

"I am only stating that there are _risks_."

"The Earth Generation can remain functioning while the remainder of us enter stasis if that is what it will take." Before Megatron had even finished Optimus was shaking his head in the negative. He could already perceive why Optimus Prime would be opposed to the very idea and it had to do with what he had stated before—there were more Earth Generation Decepticons than there were Autobots. And if the Alliance should fail with them, there was no telling what would become of Phage.

As if sensing that he was onto his trail of thought, Optimus was careful in selecting his next few words. "In any event Megatron, we would have to make another stop off at the Grand Central Station or return to Earth and ask the United Nations for additional supplies and energon."

"You know they-" the Decepticon Commander cut himself off and tried again, fastly becoming weary of the rapid back-and-forth. "This. This arguing. This is what I was talking about. You refuse to leave the Sol System because you are scared. You are hoping Cybertonium will magically appear somewhere and it will not, Prime. It. Will. Not. We need to leave. You need to listen to me. We are wasting precious and valuable time."

"The Grand Central Station is our best option to search. Perhaps something has come up that we missed last time. Or there could be new leads..."

"This is going nowhere. We are flying in circles-literally!" Megatron dragged his hand down his face slowly, uncovering first his weary crimson sun optics and then his disapproving frown. "I will contact her." Then immediately proceeded to do just that.

"For the last time," Optimus warned, "you leave her out of this."

"No." came his inevitable harsh response as he traced a smooth silvery scar along the right side of his neck cables. The action had quickly become a new nervous tick for him over the last Earth year. "Never."

"I will not allow you to make her an objective in some petty vengeance scheme of yours, Megatron!"

"Petty vengeance?" Megatron scoffed and his hand quickly dropped from his neck back to his side. "This goes well beyond that. Secondly, you do not have a choice. The needs of the many, remember Prime? Strike me and I will give the order to the Decepticons. You _will_ allow this to happen because you and I need to fight each other and the least…destructive course of action that will not destroy the _**Ark**_ and all aboard is through Phage." He grinned crookedly. "She can take the hits, after all."

Optimus's hands curled into fists and unfurled, then repeated the action. "You cannot interface with my conjunx endura."

Megatron's face lit up. "She _is _then!" He had only been making an educated guess before. Since her capture and inevitable rescue, his espionage team had reported that Phage was always at Optimus's side-or at other times, behind. A quiet shadow that had an annoying tendency to disappear and reappear for long range snipping or an opportune stab at the back. The Autobots could call her whatever they pleased: saboteur, sharpshooter, tracker...all nicer words than for what she really was and always would be- an assassin.

_His_ assassin, to be correct. It had been Megatron that oversaw the phaser receive the body modifications that best suited her capabilities whether she had liked it or not.

And since the Quest for Cybertonium had begun Megatron had seen that his information had been accurate. Optimus Prime and Phage were always within a shadow fall of each other and spent most of their down time together. It didn't matter to Megatron if they had undergone the ceremony or not to take on the mantle of conjunx endurea's, the evidence stood up for itself that they were lovers. That they had taken the title upon themselves was just a treat.

Optimus's face scrunched up into a rare self disparaging glare at his slip. "She will not agree to anything you say."

"Of _course_ she _will_. Deep down Phage thinks like you, Optimus. The needs of the many. She will come around." He paused half a second, glancing in irritation at his comm-link. "What is taking her so long to answer?"

"Megatron—" growled Optimus in warning but was suddenly cut off by abrupt laughter that boomed from Megatron's comm-link, breaking the tension in the war room like a grenade blast. Both mechs stared at the open comm-line. Laughter seemed such an impossible expression of self. That it was happening anywhere aboard the _**Ark**_ was a shock.

{Phage here!}


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **I would just like to give a shout out to you, my readers.

Congratulations, **Skyress98 **for being the first one to favorite and follow Double Bind!

And another congratulations and thank you **Guest** to be the first one to review!

**Wolf Girl811** \- Thank you for the favorite and review on Double Bind! Indeed there is an attraction going on from Megatron's part, but is that really something anyone wants? ;P

**Lereniel** \- Thank you for following Double Bind!

**Pr1me Gurl** \- And a thank you for following and favoriting Double Bind! You are too generous with your likes and follows but I get giddy every time I see you've subscribed to something I've done. I know I must be doing something right!

**Tennoda**\- YES! It is finally here! Mawhahaha! I'm sorry that it took so long. I was hoping to have this out by Christmas as a gift to you but that didn't pan out in my favor. I should have just broken it into mini chapters like did now and I could have done it then. (Sigh) But just wait, Tennoda! What I have planned for when Megatron begins his seductive campaign will live up to my brutal writing style expectations. I promise! And don't worry, this fanfic isn't stressing me out. (If anything my babies are! Hahaha!) These last two chapters were solid and done months ago, but I got writer's block on the following chapter. So I stepped away to work on Resonance before coming back to Double Bind. All is well! I am having fun writing this if it wasn't apparent from this chapter! XD

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**Chapter 2,**

"It feels like every time I turn around there's some new dogfight breaking out, ya dig?"

"Hmm."

"Over stupid slag like, Primus-brushed shoulder plates and dumb aft glitches dredging up old war wounds to start slag."

"Uh-huh."

"As if I don't have enough stress on my shoulder struts right now."

"Mm."

Idly, Jazz observed the femme next to him. The Autobot known as Phage was a curiosity to some, a disturbance to others. A juxtaposition of her former human origin echoed in her uplifted Cybertronian-template body. The blessed curvaceous frame of her former human shape was accentuated in metal, aided by her sleek alt mode and flaring door panel wings. With a soft oval face framed by a half helm crown that gave way to her twisting writhing mass of omni-directional hair, she was beautiful in a strangely savage Cybertronian fashion, and a work of art to humankind.

Also, completely absent in their current conversation. Behind his blue visor, Jazz's optics went lax and his mouth pressed together to form a classic deadpan countenance. "I mean, with all the mechs interfacing in the halls—Primus, the stress alone is driving me nuts."

"Yeah."

The light of Jazz's visor narrowed to a slender beam to match his mouth as it tightened in to a fine pressed frown. "I knew it. You aren't listening. Where are you Lil' Katt? _**Ark**_ to Lil' Katt, come in!" And he knocked on her cranium.

Phage turned her head and the light of her sleek blue visor dimmed and brightened before she managed to look just a bit sheepish. Only half a glass into her engex and her cheeks were aglow a vibrant energon blue. Maybe Jazz should not have expected so much out of the intoxicated femme.

"Sorry, 'Z. What, what were—um, who was interfacing in the halls? What?"

"Nobody."

"Then why...?" the lilt in her voice left the sentence open-ended.

The white and black mech settled back into his chair, rolling his optics behind his visor. "Never you mind."

"Auh—" Not even half a second later her face lit with realization and her omni-directional hair dropped and pooled around her shoulder struts. "Oh."

"Mmhmm—yeah." Intoned Jazz, mocking her for her conversational faux pas. "What were you even thinking about?"

"Uh…nothing. Really." She said lamely and turned her attention back to her engex, a bright neon green concoction called Radioactive.

Jazz was not so easily shaken off a trail and was quick to respond, "The cave-in on Mercury."

"What? No!"

"Really?" He certainly was impressed that it was not on her mind. "Getting stuck underground with Megatron would have me on edge for quartexs."

"We just waited for an extraction."

"For hours?"

"Jazz!" she hissed and her omni-hair lifted and flared around her head like a living thing. Jazz could not help himself as he leaned back, eyeing each individual twisting tentacle of her omni-hair as if it would lash out and bite him. "You were there at the debriefing! There's not a whole lot you can do in a cave-in than talk and wait!"

The Autobot Second-in-Command just sat there staring at her for an unnecessary span of time before saying, "What did you two talk about?"

"_Nothing_!" Phage snapped off, and her omni-hair lifted off her shoulder struts. Jazz had the particular impression of an angry cat with its fur standing on end. "He sat their like a grouch! Like this!" Immediantly she flopped back into her chair and shoved her arms in a criss-cross fashion over her breastplate. The Megatron impressionation was followed up with a minor degree tilt of her head forward and a moody frown to compliment.

She held the postion for several seconds while Jazz quietly snickered into his drink. "That's not half bad."

"I try."

"Then Optimus." Jazz was quick and smooth to continue. "You were thinking about fragging him."

The omni-hair bunched up into tight curls. For a moment Phage gave another short lived impression as if he had punched her in the gut and knocked the wind out of her air intakes before recovering. Despite her visor or rather because of it, she managed to mirror his unamused expression not long before and pursed her freedom red lips.

"Ha!" Jazz cried triumphantly. "I _knew_ it! You're addicted to the Prime Spike!"

In a rather comedic and dramatic display, her face blanched and she punched Jazz in the arm. "Oh. My. God—_Jazz_. Never say that again. _Never_!" He was still grinning like a mad mech as she continued. "Seriously! I don't need to think about my cousin!"

"Feel our pain when we first met. The 'Bots had a field day discussing if Spike's name meant his hacking capabilities or if he was boasting about his size. Imagine our disappointment when we realized it was a nickname he earned for playing football."

"Stop!" the femme intoned mock horrified, covering her face with her hands as she ducked in on herself. "Just stop!" Phage perked up suddenly, and said in way of trying to deflect and redirect the conversation in a very hamfisted fashion; "Ratchet is really annoyed by the trickle of patients to the Medbay."

"Tch." Jazz's mouth pulled up into a sneer. "Yeah well, aft deserves every bit of it. It's all his damn fault we're in this mess anyway."

"That's not true."

"Go back to your drink, Phage. I'm done with you."

"Don't be so _mean_, Jazz." she mock pouted as she leaned heavily against his shoulder strut, her omni-directional hair slowly beginning to entangle around his arm. Despite the sudden spike of anxiety that lanced through his spine, Jazz was rather proud of himself when he did not jerk or shudder outwardly. "Be nice to me. I'm one of the only femmes aboard."

"Like I give two slags. And get off me." He said, trying to shrug her off and refused to admit to himself that it had anything to do with her omni hair wrapped around his arm. "You're gonna get me in trouble with the Big O-P."

"J—azz!"

"I don't and I meant it."

"Bullslag." Phage shot back, peeling herself off his arm. "I lost track of how many _lady friend's_ you had back on Earth."

"Well you know what they say, when in Rome..." The look that Jazz slide her way was something sly and something naughty all rolled into one. "Besides, how could I not partake in the feast that Earth provided before we had to leave for the stars and go straight back to famine? It was always inevitable." Just as her face was screwing up at the remark, Jazz continued flippantly. "Anyways, I'll just have to go back to pestering Prowl."

"_Prowl?_" The shock in her face at the revelation was evident.

His facial features contorted into a look she could only label as the conniving smirk of a household cat while it plotted from its perch. "It's something of a game for me. I love messing with the mech. You should see it. He starts spluttering and going through these facial ticks. Absolute gold."

"You are terrible. How ar- hold on." Phage began before she tried to lean aside to answer her comm-link. Only Jazz distracted her from answering the call straight away.

What began as a small insignificant grin quickly wrapped around Jazz's face from audio-to-audio in a denta flashing shit-eating grin. "Let me guess—_Optimus, _putting in for another booty call."

Phage whipped back around, ignoring the call long enough to say, "Shush you!"

Behind his visor, Jazz's optics softened to match his mischievous smirk. "Have you two had the 'I-nearly-terminated-klanking' yet? It really is the best."

"Why do you have to _say_ it like that?"

"What? _Klanking_?"

"Oh gawd! Keep your voice down!"

"That's what it is." Jazz persisted as if she had not interrupted him. "Lots and lots of very loud very improper ruckus. I could call it interfacing or lovemaking, as the humans put it, if you want to be nice and proper about it. Or fragging. That's somewhere inbetween but so-_boring_. Fragging gets used for everything. 'Course we both know you're only proper in public." The smug grin wouldn't leave his face even under her withering glare. "Hey it's hardly a secret you were seeing Sideswipe. And everyone knows that if you're with one Twin you get the package deal. They have a reputation like that."

"Oh come on! Is _nobody_ going to let that down?"

"Nope."

"I was seeing Sideswipe!" persisted Phage adamantly, "_Sideswipe_! I don't even like Sunstreaker! He's a self-centered asshole!"

"Officially, maybe." She started to bluster. Despite his visor, Jazz gave her a particular look. A certain no nonsense frown that cut her off. "Look me in the face and tell me straight that you weren't getting klanked senseless by the both of them."

Her mouth parted to respond but the lie got strangled before it could even pass her vocal processor. The teal and white trimmed femme ended up gawking at him like a fish out of water. Her cheeks burned a brighter engexed hue before she snapped back to her drink. She ended up muttering something along the lines of 'I was tricked.'

Jazz was grinning like the devil himself. "Hey, don't be ashamed if your a freak! Own it. At my age you think I don't?"

"Lord in heaven!" Phage grumbled, ashen-faced. "Keep. Your. Voice. Down!"

He carried on as if he hadn't heard her. "After the first five vorns the usual frag becomes bland."

Behind his visor, one of his optical ridges inched upwards as he leaned in close to the femme as if he were an amateur conspirator. Her long omni hair coiled and twisted up on itself in agitation. Like any best bad friend, Jazz just kept grinning like the Cheshire Cat with a prize winning fish in his mouth. "You must be doing something wholly improper to keep Optimus wrapped around your fingers. You have _got_ to tell me what it is."

"_No!" _her voice hit an unusual high note on the reply.

"Come on! Noble, upright Optimus Prime felled by the wiles of an Earth woman. Well, a _Witwicky_ woman. I kept hearing about how lively they are. Whatever your style, I've done about every deed that you humans brag about-"

"Ohmygod, Jazz! I don't need to hear about your exploits."

"Tell me."

"No!"

"Don't make me hack the _**Ark's**_ security records. I have the clearance to access them you know, if I wanted to be _proper_. But there's no fun in that is there? I bet this quartex's shanix that you spend most your time in Op's hab-suite than your own. Double or nothing, how hard would I have to look before I find some clip of the two of you in an improper area? You should just tell me now and save me the trouble later."

At last, Phage lifted her cranium out of the palms of her hands. "Alright." she said at length, exasperated. "I'll tell you."

Jazz's face lit up like fireworks. As she was motioning him to lean in close so she could whisper it in his audio, Jazz remarked in conspiratorial tones. "If hand cuffs aren't involved I'm going to be sorely disappointed in the both of you."

The remark made her pause long enough to press a fist to her mouth to regain her composure. Once she managed that, she motioned him back over with a 'come here' gesture with her finger.

Eager for the scope, Jazz offered her his audio receptor, all the while beaming audio to audio.

She raised her hand to cover her mouth from onlookers and whispered. "Go to hell, Jazz."

The mech leaned back into his seat, threw his head back and laughed. "Aw...and here I thought we were going to have a moment."

"We did. And it's over."

"Oh come on! Throw me a bone! He was peace officer once. Tell me that cuffs are at _least_ involved." He wouldn't stop grinning at her.

Through half hooded optics, Phage reclined back into her chair. Then promptly flipped him off.

Behind his visor, Jazz quirked an optical ridge at her. "See," he remarked, "now I'm going to _have_ to hack the _**Ark's**_ security vids."

"You won't find anything."

Jazz leaned forward into her space and whispered dramatically and all too loud for the whisper to be effective. "Watch. Me."

Suddenly his optics dropped to her wrist. "Are you going to answer Optimus or not? I could take the call for you if you want me to. I think I could do a good you-impressionation pretty well."

A frantic squeak tore from her throat as she scrambled for the comm-link. Jazz just tilted his head back and belted out a long deep laugh. Because of his laughter, Phage leaned away from him and huddled over her comm-link to answer the demanding beeping.

"Phage here!" she chirped.

There was a short pause from the other end before the caller began. {You are unusually chipper. You must not have been expecting a call from me.}

At the first utterance of a syllable from Megatron, her body did a number of things at once. Her mouth went dry. The warm fuzzy buzz from the engex fizzled out. Her insides went cold and the smile melted off her face. Behind her, Jazz immediately quit laughing midway. She could practically feel the Autobot Second-in-Command's optics borrowing into her shoulder strut.

She started to fumble over a reply, but Megatron cut her off. {I do not have time for pleasantries, Phage. Come to my coordinates immediately.} And he cut the line. In prompt due time a coordinate location bleeped onto her comm-link's screen.

For a long undisclosed length Phage stared at her comm-link after Megatron hung up the call. "What?" she finally managed. Her cranium whipped around, omni-hair whipping out so sharply behind her that Jazz had to lean back or get smacked in the face. "What was _that_ about? Why does he want _me_?"

Jazz had straightened in his seat, no longer the conspiring best friend seeking to live vicariously through his friend but the millions old war veteran sensing danger in the air. His frown was tight pressed and no nonsense. "What did the fragger want?"

"He-" she glanced back at her open comm-line. "He wants me to come to the war room."

"He's in a meeting with Optimus right now." Jazz's mouth pulled up into a lopsided sneer. "Frag him." Phage just stared up at Jazz, imploring, lost and desperately seeking direction from the older mech as if he held the key to the door that hid her path of escape. Jazz took the meaning of her look wrong. Or at least, Phage thought the did. "See, it gets used for everything. Boring."

"Ja—zz!" she drawled desperately, nearly hissing in renewed conspirator tones as again her omni-hair coiled and bunched up around her face. Half of it shielding her visage from onlookers and the rest twisting up into a high end pony tail. Jazz spared half a thought that something had to be done about her omni-directional hair. The femme really did need a proper helmet that could hide all that. Not only did it make a lot of the mechs antsy, and left her cranium exposed for weapon-fire, but you could read her miles off. Not good at all.

On a stray mental note, Jazz thought, maybe _that's_ what it was that Optimus had the taste for- something wild. Raw and unrefined. The Prime had boasted so often how much he had loved Earth. What was it that he had acquired an uplifted femme of their population? That had to be it. Optimus must have a noble savage syndrome.

"Jazz!" Phage hissed again, more direct and insistent. The high pony tail began to fall apart and reshape itself as a mass of twisting curls around her face reminiscent of the classic Witwicky locks. "What do I _do_? Megatron is co-captain with Optimus! I-I just can't _ignore_ him can I? Do I contact Op? Is that going over a superior's head?"

Jazz shut down the side thought processes to ponder over another time. "No! No-" His anger flared and he seethed. "That's the damn Decepticon coding talking in your systems. Ignore it. You don't take orders from Megatron. Ever."

Absently and silently, she nodded along with his reasoning whether it was right or not. "But then-"

"You are an Autobot." he punctuated each word by poking the red mopey Autobot emblem on her breastplate. "You do not take orders from him. You got that, Lil' Katt? No Autobot here does. We report to Optimus Prime and Prime alone. The Decepticons report to Megatron. And from there they argue it out with each other. That's it. End of it. If Optimus wants you in that meeting, he would contact you. As it stands you have no place being there caught between the two of them—_again_." He added for emphasis. Phage just kept nodding along. "Good. Finish your drink. Bluestreak!" The mech in question perked up at the opposite end of the bar where he was talking it up with Bumblebee. The two chatterboxes perked and twisted their necks in their direction, both of their optics wide and inviting. Jazz was not in the mood to entertain a constant stream of useless babble. The call had put him in a foul mood. "I need another drink."

"The same?" Inquired Bluestreak, who had taken it upon himself that evening to be something of the impromptu bartender.

"No, I need something stronger."

Gradually, Phage tuned everything out around her. She kept nursing the drink of neon green Radioactive in her hand, twisting the glass around and around. Through the resonated bond she shared with Optimus she could Sense his agitation. His emotions were pouring through in hot roiling waves. Something was going on, but then something was always going on these days. The Quest for Cybertonium had put a large strain on everyone. A very natural reaction given that the original factions from Cybertron had about one to two Earth years at best before termination if they could not locate a new source of the crystal-stuff. And of course where everyone was agitated Optimus caught the whole of it in complaints and incident reports and tense, aggravating meetings with Megatron. All of which lead to an unlawful amount of stress-fragging, not that Phage was complaining about that. Far from it.

The only complaint she had about anything that had happened since the Quest began was that she had to be around and see the very Decepticons that had harassed and tortured her when the Decepticons had held her captive. On Earth, it would have been cruel and unusual punishment that would have resulted in a lawsuit if she pressed. For Cybertronians, it was just the mode of the day. Suck it up. At least that was how Phage rationalized their behavior. Surely there were other Autobots that were dealing with similar situations to her own. Or worse. What was her emotional and physical scars compared to the myriad and uncountable ones the Autobots had accumulated over millions of years? If the two factions were willing to shelve their own grievances for the sake of their survival she could very well do the same.

...She _did_ get to leave Earth, after all. And explore an intergalactic alien space station of questionable reputation. And be the first human –sort of—to touch down on Venus and Mercury!

_Think positively, Phage. Positively. _She reminded herself. _Just keep up what you've been doing. Never travel the __**Ark**__ alone. Always in a group. Or with someone. That someone being Optimus. Or if all else fails just phase to get to where you need to be-_

Her optics jumped from her glass of engex to her comm-link as it went off a second time. Before she answered she saw that the caller ID registered it to Megatron. As if seeing the Decepticon Commander's name would catch her optics on fire, Phage's optics lept from the display to Jazz, silently imploring him for help. He had noticed. Still frowning, he just shook his head once in the negative. Numbly, and growing more and more uneasy, she muted the beeping and fixed her attention back to the glass.

Megatron commed her back immediately after she had dropped his call. Her cheeks burned. Her fuel pump began to race. She was going to be in so much trouble. She just _knew_ it. Despite her better judgment, she muted the call again. A glance up at Jazz caught the tell end of his approving smile. Sher fixed her attention to the wall straight ahead.

She didn't feel the same. Rather there was the very uneasy sensation that the evil eye was drawing down on her backside and borrowing between her shoulder blades.

Her optics dropped back to the bright neon green concoction of her engex and it made her fuel tanks clench. Unbidden, her memories jumped back to the last time she'd taken a glass of Radioactive. Grimacing, she found she couldn't stomach the engex anymore and pushed it away. Ruefully, she rubbed at her optics.

"Jazz-"

"Did Optimus call for you personally?"

"No." she answered quickly.

"Then you have no business getting between them in the war room."

"Bluestreak!" She called out numbly. "Take this away. Can-" she began with a false start, "can I just get energon?"

Whatever his response was was lost to her. Words and transactions were lost on her. All she knew was that she ended up with a cube of energon instead of her engex and began sipping at it tentatively. Between that, she found herself once again palming her face and rubbing at her optics. Probing along the bond she shared with Optimus was not yielding any further answers. Whatever had happened he refused to elaborate and any gentle soothing she tried to send his way was rebuked. Grouchy. Grouchy, moody...

"_**PHAGE!**_"

"Pffft-!" Phage spat out the energon she had been consuming, optics doubling in size at the cruelly familiar rough roll of Megatron's command. And it was a command. He was using his commanding, military roar at her. Calling her out in front of _everyone_.

_Oh. Dear. God._

"Here with me—_**Now**_!"

_She was going to die. _Phage thought wildly. _This was the first phase of a break down in the Alliance and she was going to be taken as collateral and simply held hostage and terminated. Or terminated. Or. Think positively._

As she shrank in on herself, as if that could help hide her from the Decepticon Commander, she caught sight of Jazz from her peripheral vision whipping around in his seat and sensed more than saw the rest of the Autobots in the Recreational Lounge tense and turn. As Megatron delivered the remainder of his order, she heard every gear whirl into action. Ancient Autobot war machines sprang to life and took to their pedes. It was so noble of them, a distant part of her thought. Proceeded by another darker train, because they knew what would happen if she was taken hostage. Again.

None of it phased Megatron. She heard his distinct heavy footfall as he stormed across the lounge towards her position, narrowing in on her like a hawk on its prey. For a full precious second Phage warred internally with herself if she should dare turn around and face the terrifying sight of the Decepticon Commander coming for her. Did she have a choice? No. No she did not. Who would look a coward when everyone else was standing. Slowly, Phage turned around and that simple act took more out of her than she realized it would. Actually seeing Megatron barreling down on her was just as terrifying as she remembered and she froze up.

"Megatron!" countered Jazz in the most heroic, bold voice she had ever heard from him. "You can just turn back around and-"

Megatron gave Jazz one hard look and snarled, "Sit _down_, Maestro." Jazz did a funny twitch and sat, spluttering and cursing. "I am here on _business_." As he said that Megatron seized Phage by her upper arm and began to drag her off, saying very loudly as he went so the rest of the Autobots would hear; "When I comm you answer and obey! I told you you were needed in the war room!" The few huddled groups of Decepticons in the Lounge eyed the scene playing out before them, snickering and whispering amongst themselves as their Commander went. "The situation could be critical."

Phage caught sight of the Autobots glancing amongst themselves, fingers itching to pull out their weapons and uncertain of what action to take in this instance. Was it a breakdown in the alliance or insubordination?

"And _is_ it?" she finally snapped.

"In a manner of speaking."

"Cryptic bastard." She grumbled loudly before she could stop herself.

Megatron did not slow his pace, but his head whipped around and his optics narrowed on her with a particular indistinguishable emotion. "Spitfiring she-devil."

Phage's face screwed up. Further words failed her. The quick response came off as too friendly to her. A back and forth familiarity that she had only just been sharing with Jazz. That was not something she wanted with Megatron and it certainly was not something she was going to feed into by indulging his attempt at a fast pace back-and-forth insult war. Yet it was the strange and oddly familiar exchange that threw the Autobots for another loop. Just as she was growing irate at their uncertainty and inaction, Megatron had already hauled her from the Lounge and down the hall. They continued to attract a score of stares as he marched her through the _**Ark**_.

Desperate, Phage Reached out for Optimus across their resonated bond for some kind of answer to placate her fears and anxiety. _ ::Megatron has me! Optimus! Op! What's going on?::_

_::Do not agree to anything he says.::_

One optic narrowed as her face screwed up in a lopsided display of stress and confusion. _ ::What?:: _She Sent back instantly. _::What does __**that**__ mean? Optimus!::_

He was distracted. And stressed. She felt it all pouring through their spark bond. Tossing a haphazard look over her shoulder strut as they passed yet another dumbfounded duo of Autobots –Perceptor and Wheeljack of all mechs- she noted Perceptor frozen in place completely gobsmacked while Wheeljack was already on his comm-link to report the sighting.

Phage thought about calling out for help, but the notion was strangled in her processor, uncertain if she needed help at all. The mixed signals got translated to her mouth and vocal processor in a mess, so that all she managed to do at all was stare back at the two mechs with a lost look and mouth in a barely there squeak: "Save me!"

The situation would have been comedic if Megatron had been another Autobot. Such as Ironhide dragging her off for practices in the holodeck. Or Prowl drilling her for being late to her station by two minutes—again.

_Lord,_ she thought_, Optimus is probably getting bombarded with calls. _It was no wonder he was distracted from her if he was trying to stave off a complete breakdown of the alliance. And if that was what he was trying to do than it couldn't be a break down at all—could it? Megatron had said he wanted her in the War Room, so...no mutiny?

_No, no, calm down. Don't get worked up. Too late for that._

Uncertainty plagued her. She could phase away at any moment and hide someplace where Megatron couldn't find her, but due to the delicate peace between the Autobots and Decepticons, and Megatron's dubious co-captaincy with Prime, she was uncertain of what would otherwise be her complete grounds to get the hell out of dodge. Megatron was still her superior, per se. Just, she wasn't suppose to report to him right? No, that would be ridiculous. Megatron had given her an order specifically. He was co-captain. Jazz had said no.

_Damn paradoxial conundrums!_

Quite suddenly, she found herself pulled into an elevator. Any additional internal struggles over whether or not she should phase out came to an abrupt halt.

Megatron spared the femme beside him a once over, noting how earnestly Phage's omni-directional hair twisted and curled on itself, a direct reflection of the apprehension pulled tight across her synthoplasmic face. Having known Optimus Prime's former conjunx endura's the very idea that they were even together would have stunned him if he had not spent years tracking their engagements.

"Worried, Phage?"

She tensed. "Am I in trouble?"

"That depends on your definition."

Still careful not to look in his direction, she shifted nervously between her pedes. "I'm not sure if you're aware but, um-I'm off duty right now and...and I've been drinking. I don't think any input from me should be taken very lightly. I- don't know what sort of insight you or Optimus think I could even give..."

"Noted."

Oh lord, he was in a bad mood. Megatron always became terse when he was. Her freedom red lips snapped closed and remained so after that. The subtle motion drew Megatron's attention. The color of her lips irked him further than he already was. It was the same shade as the Autobot symbol. Same color as Optimus Prime's dominate color scheme. Megatron tried not to sneer. He had preferred another shade entirely.

There it was again, he thought to himself. _ He. Him. His._ Prodding at his confusing set of emotions, he supposed that that was what it was all coming down to. A part of him still saw Phage as his. His Deception assassin. His runaway phaser. His sassy, feisty femme.

Suddenly Phage spoke, breaking his trail of thought, "Why am I here?"

"Because Optimus is stubborn."

"Of course he is." She snipped back and finally dared to slide a long glance his way. "And _you're_ uncompromising."

_There_, thought Megatron. There was the fire. The fight. The verbal bite that he _missed_. Despite himself, Megatron did sneer. "Compromises lead to weakness."

"They _strengthen _relationships."

"Pfft!"

"Why am I needed?" she inquired again with tartness.

"I already stated." Snapped off Megatron in a tight, constricted tone that brooked no further engagement. "Optimus is being stubborn and will not listen to reason. I deduced that you could help ease tensions."

_Okaaaay, _Phage thought and did not dare to press further after that. Everything from Megatron's stiff posture to curt responses did not bode well for any further pestering on her part. It was probably safer for her to remain tight-lipped until they reached Optimus.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **I am sorry this chapter took awhile to get out. I had most of it and Chapter 4 written, but fine tuning everything took the longest. Trying to get Prime, Megatron and Phage to play off of each other and make it believable took time. I hope I've managed to accomplish that. The reveal seems a bit...clunky to me but it might just be that I'm too close to the writing.

Also I want to state now that there are two alternate endings to Double Bind. I was intending to post them both here rather than their own seperate one-shots. So, I suppose this has turned into a bit of a 'pick your ending' story. I was intending to post them after Chapter 4 as a time jump, but I might decide to add more lemons before the endings if its requested enough. This story has grown on me in enduring ways.

I hope everyone enjoys the reveal before the lemony goodness!

A big thank you to Aknamkanon, BarrelRacer1205, Dina Sana, Laurenthalas, Pr1me Gurl, Skyress98, Nauda, Wolf Girl811, xXSweet Little BumblebeeXx for favoriting and following Double Bind!

* * *

Chapter 3,

When Jazz entered the **_Ark's_** bridge, he was a force of nature. Shouting off orders before he even seized Prime's captain chair. "Will every bot quit trying to contact Prime at once! I can't even hail him, for Primus's sake!" He lept over the arm of the chair and swiveled about face. His digits began flying across the captain's control panels. Soon he had opened com-lines on the large view screen to the Security Force. Across the holoscreen Inferno and Trailbreaker's faces filled the space. "Trailbreaker! What's the word from Red Alert?"

"Megatron took Phage to the War Room." Shot of the bot at rapid pace.

"Where _is_ Red Alert?"

"About ready to have a break down." Inferno supplied. "He keeps trying to contact Prime."

"Tell him to quit it." Jazz snapped off. "I need intel on the Decepticons. Where are they? The whole slagging crew was running which ever direction in the halls."

"Same as us." Trailbreaker's cranium kept twisting on its axis as his attention flickered to several screens on his end. "They're mobilizing. But they've taken the hanger while we've concentrated on the bridge."

"Looks like Starscream is trying to keep them calm." Inferno added to the report.

Someone on the bridge scoffed. Jazz's attention riveted briefly to Cliffjumper who grumbled, "More like adding to the panic."

"Inform every Autobot to mobilize on my position and stand at the ready to repel an eventual attack. This is not a drill. Like Pitt if I'm going to have the _**Ark**_ fall into enemy hands on my watch. Trailbreaker, I need you to take a security detachment and secure the **_Ark's_ **anti-matter core. Nobody this side of Earth needs that sustaining damage."

"Understood."

"Prowl, who are you on the comm with?"

The white and black mech's optics swiveled in his direction. "Prime."

"You got through? What the hell is going on?"

Prowl's pointer digit flew up to express his desire for a moment of peace. "What-Optimus I didn't catch-what?" Bewildered, Prowl's hand came off his helm. "He terminated the line."

"What did he say?"

"To stand down. There isn't a breakdown in the Alliance."

"Bullslag." Jazz scoffed and dived back to persuading the _**Ark**_ to do his will. "I'll get to the bottom of this."

Prowl made his way to his side and leaned next to him, observing the myriad operations Jazz was running on the personal holoscreens. "What are you doing?" he asked quietly.

"Being a right proper aft."

"What?"

A grimace stole across his mouth at the joke he had just been sharing with Phage. "Streaming the War Room security feed straight to my terminal."

"That's brilliant. We can gauge the situation from here in real time and-and should we be disregarding Prime like this?"

"Don't worry your cute aft over the details Prowl. I got this."

Jazz didn't miss the way Prowl stalled up. Nor could he resist the quirk of a smirk that tugged at the corner of his mouth.

* * *

It was a short trip filled with gnawing anxiety before Phage found herself at the sliding automated door to the war room. Just beyond that door she knew in the depths of her spark, was Optimus Prime. Phage was hoping that Optimus would explain everything and soothe her rattled nerves. As the door drew fully wide to permit them entry, reality reminded her coldly that she was only wishfully thinking.

At the first sight of Optimus Prime, she nearly tripped over her own pedes at his near white-hot optics and the trails of smoke pouring from his smokestacks. The red and blue mech was bent over the active holotable, one hand pressed firmly to the side of his helm while the other tested the strength integrity of the holotable.

At first sight of them, he cut off whatever he had been saying to whomever he was saying it too over the comm-lines and jerked upright. Her pede was barely through the door before Prime started off on his tirade, stopping her in her tracks.

"Venus's vapors must have gone straight to your processor, Megatron! I have received no less than one-hundred-fifty-six communiques from Red Alert and another two-hundred-seventeen from various Autobots you crossed on your way back! Prowl and Jazz are demanding to know if they should be mobilizing to repel your Decepticons!"

"You told them no of course." Responded Megatron with an aloof air.

Stunned by the exchange, her omni-directional hair raised and coiled around itself into a tight twisting pony tail. The very distinct feeling that she was a deer caught in oncoming headlights was strong. What in the world had Megatron dragged her into?

Prime's tangled rage was so palpable his vocal processor hit static as he spluttered for a response to the audacity of Megatron's latest actions.

Smug with himself and keeping a tight grip on Phage's arm, Megatron led her to the center of the war room and stopped. Her optics darted to his hand before riveting back to Prime, but Megatron caught it all the same and deduced the thoughts behind the action. It was indeed becoming a familiar occurrence between the two of them.

Making a show of temper, Phage tore her arm out of Megatron's grasp with a huff. He let her go to storm away only for her to take up stance resolutely between the two of them. Pivoting on her heel, she shoved her fists on to her hip plates and glared between the two suspiciously.

"What is this all about?" She demanded hotly.

"Sacrifice." Megatron was quick to say, and as he predicted that pricked at the Witwicky upbringing still left in Phage as he noted her omni-hair loosening and her stubborn bottom lip slip.

"Leave." Came Optimus's sudden command, loud and imposing. "Phage-_Leave_. _**Now**_."

The look in Prime's optics and the full brunt of his commanding military voice shook the already flighty femme. The first warning that either of them had that she was activating her outlier spark ability was the sudden stench of burnt ozone that struck their olfactories. Then, the air around her distorted. Neon green lights flickered around Phage's frame in ribbons reminiscent of an aurora borealis.

The corner of Megatron's mouth quirked up. His optics were resolutely locked with Prime's even as he spoke to Phage. "Stay."

As abruptly as it had begun it ceased—and Phage remained. The look on her countenance spoke volumes as she glanced between Megatron than Optimus. As loyal as she was to the Autobots, the Decepticon deep coding running through her systems from being Altihexed left the femme lost as to what to do and who to listen too. She groped for words and found nothing she could say to apologize to him. To avoid acknowledging his displeasure, but Sensing it all the same through their bond, her optics swiveled and locked to the floor as her omni-directional hair spilled pass her shoulder struts and pooled around her face like a curtain.

Somehow she managed to find words to speak at length. "Megatron said just a bit ago that I could...help." The rising inflection of her speech only confirmed her vulnerability even as it left her sentence open ended to whether she meant it as a statement or a question directed to Prime. Neither scenario mattered to Megatron, who grinned triumphantly over her cranium at his long time adversary. "Just—how exactly am I suppose to help here? Am I suppose to mediate or...or offer a third opinion?" The standard energon blue of her visor peeked between the strands of her omni-hair as it shifted and moved. "What exactly is going on?"

"Speak up, Phage." Megatron exuded in patient, counselor tones. "Nobody ever listened to a mumbler."

Rackled by his words, her omni-hair flew back and piled into a messy bun on the top of her cranium. The stubborn glare had returned that she angled at Megatron. "I said," she bit, "what is going on? Is that loud enough for you. I could enunciate louder if you _need_."

If Megatron had been offended by her barb he showed no sign. The opposite in fact. There was the faintest of smiles ghosting across his mouth. Enough to tantalize the imagination with postulations of whether it was really there or not.

Through her bond with Prime, she felt a swell of anxiety spill pass his barrier. _That_ caught her attention. Her optics darted between the two powerful mechs. Optimus normally did not try and keep things from her like that unless he was trying to protect her. What he could be trying to hide from her this time she had no idea.

Her attention riveted and locked back on to Megatron as he began to talk. "I brought you here because the rift between Prime and I is-" he paused, more Phage thought for dramatic purpose than any actual need for consideration, "...vast and you are needed as a, mmh—bridge, one could say. Common grounds. We continue to fight and bicker because we do not know how else to react to each other." His black hand waved absently through the air and she had the impression of him delivering some trivial explanation to turn aside the eyes of his peers. It heckled her nerves. "It is interfering with the Quest."

"So-" she drawled as an optical ridge slowly inched up her forehead, "mediator."

"Phage, not another word." Commanded Optimus as he swiftly came forward to draw her behind him.

He _was_ trying to keep something from her, she thought as she went willingly, optics restlessly gauging the situation behind her visor. All together she asked all the same, "Isn't there someone better suited for this?"

"No." Megatron was quick to answer.

"Phage." Optimus's voice was hard and brooked no disagreement as his cranium snapped around. His liberty blue optics burned pass her visor and into her optics. "Not. Another. Word." He focused his attention back to his long time nemesis. "This is absurd. Even for you, Megatron."

For how easily Megatron teased her temper, Optimus chipped at his. The silver mech's attention snapped to Prime's and bit back, "What _has_ been absurd is your unwillingness to temporize!"

"We are on a strict time table." Optimus tried to say patiently but it was evident by the strain in his voice that his legendary patience was nearing an end.

"That is the basis of my _very_ point!" fumed Megatron.

As the back and forth devolved from there, the two mechs closed the small distance between themselves to re-engage in their previous dominance shout-all before Phage's arrival.

Optimus proceeded where he had left off as if Megatron had not interjected. His slipping patience more evident with every passing syllable. "We cannot go shooting across the universe on a whim! We must exhaust all possibilities in the Sol System before attempting an excursion to unknown frontiers."

"We already _have_!"

"There are other unexplored courses."

"Name _one._"

"The gas giants in this system have a plethora of large moons that-"

"Bah!" Megatron turned sharply aside, waving his hand in Prime's direction as if to swat aside his words. Almost immediately he whirled back around to reengage. "You _refuse_ to listen, Prime!" His hands were raised and shaking with restrained energy. "I have humored your erroneous logic long enough! We will accomplish nothing else but further delay and for _what_ I cannot fathom! If any of us are to live we must leave. And if need be I will take all who would go."

"With what ship." Prime demanded, but Megatron's ensuing silence was like a gunshot all of its own.

Optimus was blustering up to retaliate when Phage pushed her way between them and shoved against the two mechs with a hand apiece against their abdomens.

"Stop! STOP!" When they refused to disengage, her Witwicky temper bubbled up and burst as she jabbed at their abdomens. "SHUT UP! Both of you quit beating the dead horse!"

They deflated more at the ridiculousness of the weak jab than the shout, glancing down at the femme between them. In a rare bout of meekness, Optimus shifted marginally between his pedes and said, "I fear I am not familiar with the Earth idiom but I feel I should object."

"You would." Snarked Megatron.

Phage pressed two fingers to her right temple and rubbed the area. "Oh lord." She breathed, and said louder, "It's just a phrase for wasting time on a meaningless point."

"Why use a horse?"

"Forget the horse! The horse doesn't exist! The issue here is that arguing isn't helping anyone!"

"My point exactly."

She shot a dirty glare at Megatron then softened to a hard frown at Prime. "You two have to work together."

"I _know_ this."

"Know nothing." Phage snapped back and poked Optimus's chassis. "Make it work! Whatever it takes!" She looked between the two, both bigger than her, missing the pained expression that crossed Prime's optics when she looked to Megatron. And again missed the gleam of victory stealing over Megatron's when she glanced away. "You both have to play nice."

Megatron's optical ridge quirked up. "I can play nice."

Both her and Prime stared at him in disbelief. Then, Phage softened and struggled for a moment before asking, "Are you-okay? You're acting...off."

The red glow of Megatron's optics hardened. "I am functioning well." He said brusquely. It took him a moment before adding awkwardly, "Thank you-for asking."

"Uh-huh." Absently, she nodded along. "When was the last time you saw Ratchet about your Cybertonium levels. You know, symptoms include-"

"I am well aware of the symptoms. Not that any of that _matters_." His attention shifted back to Prime. "When we are _unable_ to replenish our _supplies_."

It was a small measure of improvement that they did not begin shouting at each other again, but the heated staring contest could have ignited lead. Exhaling noisily through her olfactory, Phage palmed her face, slipping her fingers under her visor to rub at her optics. "So this is about where to even _look_ for Cybertonium? That's what you're both arguing about?" Her voice strained as she tried to adopt her new role as mediator. Her hands came together and unfolded like a book. "I _understand_ both your frustrations. Really, I do."

Platitudes came to a cessation at Megatron's abrupt scoff. "I refuse to be spoken down to by a vorner."

"_You're _the one that brought _me _here."

"This is not about the Cybertonium. This is about what it has always been about." He replied cryptically, his optics never once leaving Prime's. "Optimus and me and how you have become trapped in the middle of us." He glanced down finally at the smaller femme between them and his tone dropped to a light musing note. "Quite literally as it seems. You are in a...double bind you could say."

"I-What?" Phage spluttered, her optical ridges scrunched together. "What are you talking about? How am _I_ in a double bind? Weren't we just discussing the Quest?"

"He is talking about a matter that should not concern you."

"Of course it concerns her, Optimus. _Your_ life hangs in the balance. The life of _her_ conjunx endura."

Trying desperately to grasp at the saner strands of the conversation, Phage began tentatively. "Megatron is right, Op. Without Cybertonium-"

"I warned you not to agree to anything he says." Grumbled Prime.

Phage blinked hard. "But the point of being a mediator is to be a neutral party and-"

"You are not here to mediate."

"Of course she is." Interjected Megatron smoothly.

Optimus's imposing frame inflated to begin another round of their useless, cyclical arguing when Phage beat him to the point and mock jabbed him again in the abdomen. He deflated and looked to her in stunned silence.

"Will you stop that!"

"I am curious." Megatron began mockingly. "Do you keep her around as an exercise in patience? Or is her feisty temper prelude to foreplay."

The remark earned both their scorn, and one slender finger stabbed his way from the teal femme. "Another comment like that and I will kick your ass."

A rare bark of a laugh broke pass Megatron's derma, shocking the two of them and breaking the tension in the war room. It marked a reset in the conversational direction that Megatron used to step aside and move slowly away from the two.

"About my previous point before Optimus so rudely interrupted."

Blustering, Phage snipped, "What previous point? I'm rather missing the whole point of whatever the two of you are _really_ arguing about." Megatron did not miss the glare she shot up at Prime. "It _sounds_ like we have exhausted all known plausible courses for Cybertonium in my system. So is it about _staying_ in the Sol System or attempting to find Cybertonium by _leaving_."

"Which would you choose, Phage?"

"Both have risk-" Abruptly, she cut herself off. She had the sudden impression that there was in fact a dual meaning hidden under the seemingly simple inquiry. She could practically hear the real question, which _side_ would she choose if the Alliance split? Optimus Prime or Megatron's. Autobot or Decepticon. Perhaps more frightening was the sudden stark realization that not even she quite knew. If she sided with Megatron it wasn't really about the Decepticon ideal, as a desire to find Cybertonium to save Optimus. And she couldn't be the only one that would see it that way either, if events went down that path.

"Yes, Phage?" Fished Megatron.

Maybe it was old scars that were painting her view but Optimus's earlier warning rang in her processor, adding to her growing notion of some underhanded tactic. "Is this that double bind you were referring too?"

Megatron was just opening his mouth to respond when Optimus slipped his hand onto her shoulder strut and squeezed it, breaking her train of thoughts and reassuring her all at once that with him there everything would be fine. At the very least, it was the comforting lie she wanted to tell herself.

"We would not be resigning to our fates if we stayed in the Sol System to scour it over for Cybertonium." Insisted Optimus.

"Really?" Perked Megatron. "Because I was formulating the impression you were slipping into one of your _moods_ again."

Phage shot Optimus another hard look and missed Megatron's quirk of a grin. "Then we're leaving?" She pressed and couldn't quite hide the note of relief in her tone.

Optimus cycled air in through his air intakes and exhaled slowly. "We do not have a destination."

Another long suffering scoff rang from Megatron who stormed away but went no where fast.

"Phage," Megatron barked off suddenly, "You Witwicky's are all about sacrifices to secure victory. Prove it to me. How far would you go to ensure not only the success of this Alliance, but the survival of us all?"

Her face screwed up. "I don't have to prove anything to you."

"Amuse me."

Her mouth twisted up in disgust as her cranium snapped up to look at Optimus, silently imploring for help. "I'm sorry." Phage remarked tersely, the infamous Witwicky temper seeping through. "What _exactly_ are we discussing?"

His heavy blue hand squeezed her shoulder strut harder than necessary. He was not looking at her as he said, "You need to leave."

_::You keep saying that but you won't explain why.:: _She tried to Send to him and was met by his mental walls. Her mouth pulled together into a frown.

"Our mediator has chosen to stay, Optimus." Megatron retaliated. "I thought that was apparent."

She shrugged Prime's hand off and twisted to glower up at him. "You're trying to protect me again." She called him out and started poking him in the midsection, much to Megatron's amusement. _::You always get distant when you're doing that.::_

_::You do not understand what is at stake right now.::_

_::Now you respond.:: Came her hot blooded thought. "You're right. I don't. I don't understand because neither one of you is spitting out what's really going on here. There is something more than a direction you are arguing about and I can't figure out why Megatron thought it was necessary to drag me across the damn Ark in front of everyone to get involved in this. Do you have **any** idea how **embarrassing** that was?::_

"Troubles, conjunx endurea?" Announced Megatron suddenly, capturing their attention to his stiff frame and crossed arms.

At once, both Phage and Optimus said tersely, "No."

"Yes well, I believe we have left her in suspense long enough, would you not agree, Prime?" There was no getting rid of the grin that had worked its way onto his mouth.

"Don't."

"Don't!" He mocked. "Don't he says. Contracting, Optimus? I really have set you off."

Phage squeezed her optics shut and rubbed at the bridge of her olfactory. "Lord in heaven, I swear, ninety-percent of your war must have been mudslinging."

Both mechs glanced at the femme with mixed expressions. At length Megatron was the one who said, "We are discussing the means of easing the tensions between Prime and I that I have already set forth, but Optimus will not cooperate."

"Team building." She remarked with exasperation. "You're _arguing _about team building methods? What was so hard to say about that? Geez." One hand squeezed the bridge of her olfactory. "What exactly was it?" She inquired. "Multiple rounds in the shooting range?" Like Prime before her, Megatron picked up on a threadbare strain of sarcasm in her voice that threatened to undo his grin. "A race would seem unfair...ish." she added, "You can fly," she rambled on, gesticulating to Megatron, "and your flight speed beats out Optimus's ground speed. Or were you discussing the classic drop and catch?"

Patiently, Megatron waited for the rambling to die off before delivering his one-punch. "You."

"Me what?" She asked innocently. "You want me to mediate that or bare witness? Are you guys planning to keep tally? Best two out of three or something? Is that how things are going to get sorted out by top brass around here? I really don't understand why you need me for that."

It was rare that an event left Megatron gaping. She just kept looking between them with a lost expression.

"What?"

"Well, Megatron." She could hear the dare in Prime's voice and couldn't understand why he was challenging him. "Are you going to elaborate?"

His jaw clicked shut. "I had forgotten how...naive youth could be."

"Can somebody _please_ give me a straight answer here? God, you're both more stubborn than ornery."

Silent and as imposing as mountains, the two stood apart glaring each other down. Phage was just of a mind to throw her hands up and walk out when Megatron said, "I will elaborate then, since bluntness is lost on you. I want you."

There was a spark pulse's silence before Phage said, "You want me to what?" Her face pinched together. "I am not joining the Decepticons, if that's what you're trying to get at."

Megatron slapped his face and dragged his hand down its length. "How much did you have to drink?"

"Not even a glass!" She blustered.

"To frag!" Megatron snapped. "My intent is to frag you!"

Phage blinked hard. An action that shown against her visor as the luminosity dimmed and returned to full strength. "Wait…" She tried to step back but thumped into Optimus, who immediately put a possessive hand on her hip plate. "What?"

Optimus said quietly, "Megatron is threatening to annul the Alliance and seize the _**Ark**_ unless…" His voice was a mixture of pain and anger as he pressed himself to continue, "He interfaces with you."

Jazz was right. Klanking did sound better. But either word coming out of Optimus's mouth, when they weren't alone together in the privacy of their quarters was just wrong on her audio receptors. Compiled with the sheer ridiculousness of that very statement...

Of all of her reactions she could have had to the news, both mechs had expected anger to be at the forefront. Instead, a disjointed snort of a laugh broke pass her freedom red lips.

Her omni-directional hair broke out of the messy bun and collapsed around her shoulder struts. "This is a joke, right? This-" she glanced between both mechs and the smiled died off of her face. "-this is you two." Her voice drooped as she began to mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, "Not the Twins or Jazz..."

"What did I say about mumbling."

She shot Megatron yet another dirty look. "Optimus is right." The quick temper was back. "Venus's vapors did go straight to your processor. Or you got hit harder in the cranium in that cave-in on Mercury than you were willing to admit."

_::I tried to tell you to go. I did not want you involved in this.::_

_::An FYI would have been **nice**. News flash: Megatron has lost his goddamn processor. So hide! How hard would that have been?::_

_::I did not want you to know.::_

_::Are you serious?!::_

"Neither of which I can guarantee has happened."

"Then it's the lack of Cybertonium messing with your cerebral processes." She bit. "Can we take a moment to put this whole thing into perspective? The last of your species is on board the **_Ark_**, near ninety-percent or more of which will die within the next two years without this mineral necessary to your biology, and in the last hour you've both been at each other's throats because you can't find a source of Cybertonium. During that time _you_ thought what-you'd get in a last fuck you to Prime by klanking me under the pretense of team building—how in the world did I get dragged into this? No—no, you know what. I'm calling your bluff. I'm leaving." She announced suddenly and proceeded to do just that.

If Optimus had been surprised by her relative lack of anger he was further stunned by Megatron's uncharacteristic one.

"Certainly." The Decepticon Commander shrugged as if it had never mattered to him at all, despite the fact to the evidence that it clearly did- dragging her across the ship and pulling her into the middle of their dispute.

Always suspicious of him, Phage kept one optic on him as long as she could as she started for the door in a long arc. She was nearly there when Megatron added, "There _is_ a line to be drawn for what a Witwicky would sacrifice."

Phage halted midstep.

Optimus tensed, optics narrowing and flaring as he focused his attention solely on Megatron. "Keep going, Phage."

"I am only stating an observation, Prime." And Megatron's optics slide across the cool air and over to Phage's backside. "She can do as she wishes. She should just be aware that if she walks out of the room the Alliance is broken. Within astroseconds the factions will be fighting. Within the cycle the battle for the _**Ark**_ should be decided. Whoever terminates because of it will be on her shoulders-"

"No they will not! Whatever happens falls on your shoulders directly!" growled Optimus. _::Ignore him, Alo Ata.::_ "Ignore him and go."

"—And should she live through that," his voice rose to be heard above Prime's, "and the Quest fails she will be one of the few left alive to wonder for the rest of her _prolonged life_ if her actions right now could have changed fate. If she could have not only saved lives _now_ but inevitably _yours_ Optimus Prime, should you survive the inevitable conflict yet tragically succumb to the lack of Cybertonium in your systems and terminate slow and painfully."

Standing behind Megatron where only Optimus could see her, Phage's body was tense and near trembling with rage. "Keep going, Phage." Optimus pressed again as his attention shifted from Phage and zeroed in on Megatron. "Megatron, to avoid unnecessary causalities, I will listen to you. We will leave the Sol System. Do you hear me? We will leave. Just leave Phage out of this."

"It is far too late for that, Prime."

In the ensuing tense silence that descended, a soft click made her jump. Megatron's voice carried over the war room. "Soundwave-"

* * *

The atmosphere in the **_Ark's_** hanger bay was frought with apprehension and grim dispositions. The Combaticons checked their weapons for the hundredth time. Astrotrain and the conehead Seekers Ramjet and Thrust kept glancing towards the hanger bay doors. Others, such as Soundwave stood or sat nearby waiting for the inevitable call. Low mumblings speculated the nature of the disagreement that was tearing the Alliance down behind closed doors. Soundwave watched Starscream pace the length of the hanger bay for the twelfth time, grumbling low to himself about the incapability of Megatron to neogitation delicate matters.

Everyone jumped when Megatron's voice broke over Soundwave's comm-lines. Optics lifted and riveted to the Communication Officer. The Combaticon's hands stilled on their weapons. The persistant click-tap-tapping of Starscream's heels came to a halt.

{Wait!}

It was Phage.

"-remain on standby."

The line cut out. The tension was thick enough to cut with an energy blade. Soundwave buried his cranium in his hands and waited.

* * *

Phage was staring through the ceiling after having flung her head back to offer her plea for time. That it had worked was only a minor relief.

With the release of his comm-link, Phage briefly retracted her visor and buried her head in her hands, only to drag them down the length of her white synthoplasmic face. "Why me?" Floated her strained voice back to them.

Megatron twisted at the waist to address her, leaving himself half exposed to Optimus Prime. His response was a long hard eternity in coming.

"I had not finished sampling you."

His words racked her soul and sent a chill racing up her spine. She tried to push aside her memories of her time spent unwillingly with the Decepticons and failed. There was no getting over what he had done to her.

She groaned suddenly. A groan that swiftly morphed into a frustrated snarling growl. Her visor was back in place before she turned sharply on her heel and launched into her own tirade.

"Where do you get off?!" She skipped shouting and went right to the yelling. "You Altihexed me already, wasn't that enough?" Between the quiet burning of Megatron's crimson sun optics and his stern frown, she got her answer. "You can't hold the crew as collateral so you can add me to your list of Optimus's fragged femmes, you serial home-wrecker! Go find your own goddamn whore, you cold hearted bastard!" Megatron's head inclined at her choice of words and Phage took it wrong. What with the awkward timing of the conversation she had just had with Jazz prior about her former escapades with the Twins. "I was talking about Starscream, you ass." She seethed.

"Cold?" Taken aback by the simple echo, Phage flinched.

It was the way Megatron said the single word, with the kind of low simmering heat of a lava flow, or red furnace coals before everything burst into violent fire and heat. His facial features matched his tone, head tilted downwards to cast his face in deepening shadows until his optics were buried so far in darkness that they were burning orbs of red light. "Cold? You think I'm _cold_?"

As he approached Phage he lifted one black hand and pointed a single accusatory digit at Prime. "_He_ is cold. Distant. Typical Iaconian. _ I_ am from Kaon. And Kaonite's are known for our hot-blooded tempers. Kaon, where the Manganese Mountain once laid. There you would find the city of Kaon nestled in the Basalt Valley, a city ever shrouded in a dark layer of grime. An industrial city supported by the smelting pools given to us by Mt. Quasar. Everyone of us a craftsman or laborer, all working to provide the raw materials for grandeur cities while Kaon was left behind in the soot and dust so city-states like Iacon could sit in our sun and shine with glory. It was on _our_ backs those cities were made great. I am not _cold_, Phage. I care too much. Too passionate. Too _angry_. Never make that mistake again."

A unusual silence settled in the war room, injected with the soft white noise of the _**Ark**_ as she coasted through space and the quiet thrumming of the holomatter table. A stranger expression had taken Phage, the sudden mood and speech knocking the heat out of her own air. She shifted her weight between her pedes, her whole demeanor changing to a subdued timbre. Fighting him, he had reminded her, was an impossible affair. What was her rage and fire to his that he had nursed and grown for five million years. There was no use in spitting at the sun.

"So," Phage was the first to try and break the tension with her brand of humor, "you would be from Chicago or Detroit if you were human..." Her words trailed off, becoming meeker under Megatron's scrutinizing glare.

Daring to take her optics off of Megatron, Phage risked a weary glance at Optimus that he returned with his own heavy one. Megatron observed the exchange and said at length, "He cannot help you." Phage's attention returned to the silver mech. "Make your decision." He snapped.

Her lips moved, but her voice was barely enough for a whisper. "What was that, Phage? I do not think Optimus heard you."

She shuffled, casting her glance downwards. "Don't hurt the crew."

"Phage." Standing alone to himself, Optimus's fists trembled, barely restrained at his sides. If he had something else to add it was lost. His pained optics turned down as he looked aside.

A slow smirk stole across Megatron's face. One that he wore as he moved steadily and purposefully towards Prime's femme. "Phage has made her decision. Just as I said she would. Are you going to stop that?"

Barb after barb, Phage thought. _Asshole._

"She has agreed to my terms."

Behind her visor, an optical ridge perked up. Phage lifted her gaze marginally, enough to glimpse more of Megatron but not daring to look him in the face. "Terms? Pural? I thought this was a one night stand kind of deal."

"Oh, no. My ultimatum was that Optimus and I would fight over you _rather_ _than_ the Quest. Something to distract us from sabotaging what really matters." She glared at his choice of words. "That entails…multiple campaigns, if the Great War is anything to go by."

That comparison made her fidget, the mere idea of becoming a physical battleground for the war between both leaders was a daunting and frightening proposition. "I don't understand. How exactly do you intend to fight over me?"

It might have sounded like a dumb question once she voiced it out there, but her engexed processor thought it had sounded valid. Optimus and Megatron were five million year old alien bio-mechanical entities. Where on Earth 'fighting over' could mean any number of things from comedic romance to fistfights, she wasn't sure if she was literally going to become a punching bag for Megatron or his free port.

"How does anyone fight over land, or ideals, or values." Phage hung on to his every word. Waiting, expectant. But he left her in suspense.

It had been a long time that Optimus had been silent. "Megatron." Conflict raged across his visage like the worse of battles. His voice was beaten, imploring.

"I named my condition." Megatron intoned, "We battle over Phage."

Megatron's gaze lingered on Optimus as he moved purposefully towards Phage. Once he had reached her his attention drooped and swiveled, locking onto the femme as he came up beside her. His hand lifted up and she tensed, trying not to jerk badly at the subtle motion. The large bulky digits touched gently under her chin and cupped it, tilting her cranium up to look at him. He stroked her chin with his thumb. Briefly, his optics flickered over to Prime before sliding back leisurely to Phage.

Her optics followed his every move behind the sanctity of her visor. Her voice stuttered over a false start. "Here?" She eeked out, optics darted furtively to Optimus. "Right now?"

"Where else." His smile was toxic.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **At last I am able to post the very chapter that was requested by fellow fanfiction writer **Tennoda** in exchange for an ending to her story Prisoner! This has been a long road. A twenty-two drafts and six pages removed content kind of long road. When Tennoda and I originally talked about our fanfic exchange the lemon threesome I mentioned was nothing like what my final draft came to be. I could not post what was the orignal concept because the characters, mainly Optimus, were so out of character that it felt so wrong to post something like that. As I worked through the drafts, this story started to take shape and suddenly it expanded into more than just a oneshot idea. It has been an interesting ride to say the least.

As I mentioned in the authors note of last chapter, this story has grown on me in fun ways. If just one person requests it, I am willing to write more scenes between PhagexOptimusxMegatron for this story.

This fanfic also has multiple endings for the Quest for Cybertonium. I stated last chapter that I had two alternate endings planned, but that number has expanded to four. Each with a vastly different outcome for the future of Phage and the Cybertronians that have the potential to spawn their own alternate story arcs. The first of these alternate endings I like to refer to as the 'cop out' ending, and its outcome is hinted at in this very chapter. It was the orignal ending I had planned for Double Bind. I will leave it up to you readers to see why it is dubbed that.

Lastly, a shout out to say thank you to **twistedlittledoll** and **Phoenixless9819** for favoriting and following Double Bind!

* * *

**Chapter 4,**

Life was strange, Phage reflected, as she stood rigid as a statue willfully allowing Megatron to stroke her chin with the smooth pad of his thumb. It was strange that her short lived throuple relationship with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe was but one of life's many stepping stones to prepare and lead her to this very point. All of it, Megatron and Optimus's bickering, the power plays, she could transcribe all of it onto the Terrible Twins with their sibling rivalry and trivial spats. When Phage realized that, the whole situation was not just relatable, but bearable enough to stomach.

_I am not an overpowered femme,_ Phage told herself. _I. Made. A choice._

And with that choice, if she was given the opportunity, she would turn the whole damn thing around on Megatron and show the bastard who was going to own whom. She refused to allow him to use interfacing as a power play against her. She would be damned if-

A cool, soothing presence brushed her consciousness from afar, the sensation not unlike the tender touch of a lover's gentle hand stroking her cheek. Ever thankful for her visor, her optics shifted off of Megatron and found Optimus across the way, allowing the tension to ease from her shoulder struts and his calming presence permeating through her mind to assuage the anger bubbling within her until she cooled beside his grounding essence. Lulled into a false sense of security, her optics slid shut and her breath hitched as she was left reeling at the dual sensations of Optimus's living aura within her processes and the unwanted touch of Megatron's black matte digits tipping her chin up before gliding along the curve of her throat.

The same hands, she recalled abruptly, that had abused her months before the formation of the Alliance.

A sudden overwhelming urge rose up in her to smack Megatron's hand aside and make a jab for the kidney's. Her muscle cables tensed to lash out and she had to forcibly stop herself, accumulating in a very noticeable flinch. Her resolve was further bolstered by Optimus as more of his will spilled into her roiling psyche. On tender threads, Phage barely managed restraint as her fist trembled, locked at her side. Phage did tilt her cranium away from Megatron's touch, exposing more of her neck cables to him than she would have liked.

_For my 'Bots, _she had to remind herself. _This is for my 'Bots._

Megatron took his leisure, his digits slowing to a crawl to gauge the pulse of her main fuel line. Her optics flew open, staring blindly across the war room. Without a word to the rapid pulse, Megatron's digits continued their path trailing along the arch of her shoulder strut and rushing to the edge of her pauldron where each digit took its own unhurried dive off the lip into empty space. She tried not to shiver at the ghost signals left in his wake, but some tell must have been transparent as Megatron's quiet, husky laugh haunted her audios. And then he moved out of her field of vision.

A swell of anxiety struck her fast. Out of a wild fear that she would look weak before the Decepticon warlord, Phage did not move to track him and so lost him from her line of sight, peripheral and all. Needing an anchor, her optics swiveled around and locked straight ahead of her onto the brilliant red and blue color scheme of Optimus Prime. The space between them had not seemed to yawn so wide before, but the divide was suddenly vast and insurmountable. They might as well have stood across a canyon as wide and deep as the Valles Marineris on Mars with his presence in her brain module, though fortifying, as useful as love letters. Their gazes caught across the expanse, and there in Prime's she found a tortured, helpless expression reflecting in his exposed optics.

Do something, she silently mouthed.

_::I...::_ The thought hung between their binary-bonded brain modules for a moment before he finally concluded with no amount of underlying frustration to the Send, _::...am unable.::_

The lower half of her face contorted to reflect her confusion before alighting with revelation not more than a second later. _::The crew.::_ A swell of regret and guilt washed over her from Prime's end of their resonated sparks._ ::He's holding them over you too.::_

Her audio receptors strained to detect the faintest soft whirl of Megatron's gears or quiet compression of his internal hydraulics. It may have been a useless endeavor, as she could feel the heat given off by his large frame for how close he stood behind her, but any advantage to his next move was information to help prepare her. If she really could fortify herself at all.

Unbidden, and yet all in a fruitless effort to prolong additional contact, Phage's omni-directional hair ghosted his frame, recoiling ever higher and higher, spilling over her shoulder struts and scaling her cranium to regain the allusion of the messy bun it had once held.

All of a sudden a Send penetrated through her racing processor from Optimus, one he had not meant to share with her. The mental data was of Megatron's reaction to her omni-hair accompanied by an image of the two of them from Optimus's perspective. Of her stiff, anxious self and a smirk on Megatron's stern features as he regarded her omni-hair. Apparently, he found it amusing.

_::Close me off.::_ Her Send shot off at rapid pace, desperate and imploring.

_::No.::_

Her red lips contorted into a grimace to match the pain in his optics._ ::Please. You know I'm not good at it. I doubt I could keep you shut out for long. But you could. Don't do this to yourself. The both of us don't have to-::_

_::No.:: L_aconic and adamant came his short reply. _::This is my fault.::_

_::Don't put yourself through this too.::_

_::Whether we had kept the resonance or not Phage, or undergone the Conjunx Ritus, we would still be going through this together.::_

_Tears threatened to build up and cut fresh tracks down her cheeks. ::Optimus.::_

_With a steely will and a steadying breath, Phage cycled air in through her olfactory. It was rare that words could strike her so deep, but Optimus was always so sincere, and if it were not for Megatron or their situation she knew she would have likely succumb to a rare fit of weakness all over Optimus's shoulder._

_Instead, she swallowed the lump threatening to form in her throat. ::You stubborn...:: _She stumbled to find the right words. _::-Stubborn mech!::_

His Touch grazed her consciousness again. She was desperate to give in to the comfortingly familiarity and instead did as she had threatened she would—she booted him from her mental space and tried to lock him out. An effort she knew from training sessions that she was far less good at than him. It required concentration and with Megatron acting as distractee she knew she would not last to make it to her best record, but she had to try.

After having successfully booted Prime, it twisted her fuel tanks too painfully to look at Optimus. The mere idea that he would feel what she felt through their Bond sickened her too deeply. They both did not have to suffer through what was going to come, no matter that Optimus insisted that they should. Casting her gaze downwards, Phage fixed it to the floor and waited.

When Megatron's digits touched her backside in the small of the space between her door wings, Phage jumped badly. Then grimaced in self berate when Megatron chortled quietly behind her.

"Sensitive, Phage?" Murmured Megatron overhead. He did not wait for her response and she knew he would not, and likely not, expect one anyway.

His digits glided along the edge of her left door wing from the connector on her back to the keen edged tip. As his digits ascended, so too did her door wings until they were angled at a sharp degree. When his digits alighted at the utmost point, he flicked the tip of her door wing sending a minor tremor reverberating through the sensitive appendage, into the joint connector, before shooting through her frame. Again Phage flinched and tried not to think about the pleasant tendrils that trickled through her systems.

"Very sensitive, it seems." Megatron concluded softly.

She wanted to groan and held it back. How was she that readable?

Traveling lightly, his digits continued their exploration across the expanse of her door wings. "You know," Megatron remarked quietly, "I have missed your company at the sea base."

"I can't see how." Phage strained to say. "When there are such characters as Rumble, Frenzy and Skywarp to keep things entertaining."

Those infuriating digits trailed to her right door wing and began absently sketching invisible patterns on the surface. The gentleness of his touch surprised her though. She had not realized he was capable of being light-handed. "You know my preference for quiet, intellectual company."

"What are you doing?" Phage snapped and tried to glance around to spot him. "Just..." She struggled to say the words and gave up on it. "Y_ou know._"

Some alien emotion died off his face before she could decipher it.

"I know _many_ things." Megatron remarked coyly, a ghost of a smirk tugging at his lips. He shifted behind her, closing the distance in their height. When he spoke again, it was near her right audio receptor where she could just glance him from her peripheral. "You are going to have to be more specific than that, _mediator_."

Damn it all. Apparently, he was enjoying her new function a little too much.

In the wake of his encroach, her messy bun omni-hair coiled and tightened painfully with no further place it could retreat, dreading the unavoidable contact. Her stray 'fly-aways' writhe and recoiled where it brushed against the slightest part of his frame, utterly uncertain with what to do with itself as much as any survivors caught outside of a vault. When Phage felt his hand at her back brush and chase one of her strands, she recalled Optimus's errant thought.

_Oh god, why did I never do anything about my omni-hair? A full helmet, how many times have I told myself that?! A full helmet would have been so preferable right now!_

"Just get this over with." Phage strained to grit between her denta.

"So impatient." A sly smile worked its way across his lips. His subtle touches ceased, leaving her senses straining to discern the next brush.

"Relax, Phage. We are going to be here awhile." He chortled her name, hot breath playing against her audio receptor as his lips brushed it with the delicacy of butterfly wings. A shiver trolled up and down her spine. "I always take my time with my newest acquisitions."

Her optics widened behind her visor as a small coil of heat ignited in her core and her valve clenched.

__Oh—my-god.__

How could his voice whispering in her audio have that kind of affect on her? Better question, why was Megatron's voice not classified as a weapon of mass destruction? If should have been. Somebody, somewhere fudged up, because to have the kind of charismatic power to bend half a planet under one's control had to be illegal. That was too much power for one mech to have—and then to turn around and wield that power on her poor soul... It was as unfair as Optimus whispering sweet not-safe-for-work-environment nothings to rev her up or take her over the edge, situation depending.

It could not be Megatron's voice, she convinced herself, it was the damn Decepticon Altihex virus woven through her systems that was making his voice so sexy-

-_No!_ Tantalizing! _That_ was the word! _Not_ the other! _Never_ the other.

_Ignore! Hard pass! Swipe left! Swipe. Left._

_Although, the way his hands are massaging my door wings is undeniably nice. As if he had intimate knowledge of their workings. Would it be so wrong to enjoy just a little bit of this..._

_Hard stop! Yes! Yes it would! Stop!_

"Getting this over with, as you put it, requires both parties cooperation. And you are as rigid as Optimus mid-speech."

Phage was just opening her mouth to make an acidic retort when instead an abrupt, shrill squeak flew off her glossa. Without warning, Megatron dug his digits into the door wing slots and probed the sensitive connectors making her jump badly as one pleasurable jolt after another raced through her systems.

Desperate to recover the situation, Phage tried to stifle any further undignified squeaks, yet was completely unable to stop her door wings from twitching and jerking incessantly at his touch. She shot him a sideways glare.

"I wonder _why!_" She bit back and failed at that, her voice hitting an octave higher than normal when he found a particular sensitive nerve-circuit. Embarrassed by her natural bodily reactions, Phage was further humiliated that Megatron had seemed to take an keen intrigue in the matter. He kept toying with the same area, causing little pleasurable electric shock waves to shoot down her back and dissipate in an tingling sensation over and over again. Standing still was an improbability. Keeping her door wings docile was an impossibility.

"You cannot hide behind your feisty temper forever, Phage." Behind her and out of her field of vision, Megatron's attention casually rolled from her profile to her fidgety door wings. Lightly he said, "There is no defense I have yet to demolish."

"Really?" Remarked Phage deadpan. He caught the twinge that rippled through her omni-hair and the subtle shift in the vibrancy of her cerulean visor. "Will you just-" She stammered. "-Let's just get this _over_ with."

His tormenting digits kept plying the sensitive wires and connectors, making her spasm uncontrollably. Suddenly, Megatron chuckled.

"What's so funny?" She hissed.

"Your impatience to begin." There was no wiping the grin twisting its way onto his face as he teased the area further, taking his time until he had satisfied his curiosity. All throughout, Phage struggled to swallow every squeak and squeal and twinge, with little success.

"Do try to relax, my little spitfire." His voice rolled off his glossa in a rumble of a whisper, lips fluttering against her audio receptor. "And this can be a pleasurable experience for the both of us."

Phage inhaled sharply as her processor was left grasping for the normalcy it had had not an hour ago.

_His...spitfire? His?_

How was his voice...oh god. Rumbling in husky honeyed notes that she had no idea could sound so enticing-No. _No!_ No. Damn the Altihex virus...

__Bad Phage, bad!__

__But—his! What?__

Phage was only too glad when Megatron's curiosity was sated with her door wings, then quickly left to dread as his left hand trailed down along her spine. His course sharply diverged, wrapped around her arm and trapped it to her side. He drew her flush against his frame in a one-armed embrace, his large hand splaying across the expanse of her soft waist, digits teasing the elasticity of the solidified living metal. He seemed only satisfied when it gave under his touch with the flexibility of the smoothest of Earth leather's.

Beneath his warm hand, Megatron felt Phage's muscle cables tense and recoil causing the soft metal to harden under his touch, losing its former elasticity until it took on the strength of sturdier metal alloys. A low growl rushed from Megatron's throat.

"Relax I said." Lazily, he preoccupied himself with tracing the seams of her abdomen, diverging suddenly off to mark invisible patterns on the flat surface, than repeat the motion.

Unease and queasiness began to settle in her fuel tanks with the motions of his digits.

"Annoyed, Megatron?" Phage tried to needle and huffed a laugh in a vain attempt to dissuade the feelings in the pit of her fuel tanks and bolster her nerve. "You Cybertronians have the kinkiest fetish for soft materials."

Gradually, Megatron tightened his hold on her in a slow constricting embrace, pulling her closer against his frame than she thought possible. Notions of intimacy filled her befuddled processor. Memories of similar sensations with Optimus, drawn up so close beside him that they seemed to fit like pieces of the same puzzle and that if they could be any closer together they would have had to have been combiners. A corner of her was left stumbling that she could feel the same sensation right then, drawn up so close against Megatron's own frame that it frightened her.

So close that she could feel Megatron's lips move against her audio, feel the sarcastic smile pulling at his lips at her attempted jibe. "Clearly you are speaking from experience. I was wondering what was keeping Optimus attached at your heels."

The white hue of her face shot straight through with an energon blue blush. Behind the band of her visor, her optics widened to match her slack jawed gape. She fumbled to correct herself but Megatron cut her off before she could.

"Do you know what it is that makes femmes exotic?"

She wanted to respond yes, second guessed herself and gave a small shake of her head in the negative.

His denta grazed her audio receptor. "No. Of course not, _Earthling_. _Vorner_." His digits traced out another alien pattern on the flat of her stomach. "I doubt you would appreciate the complexities of the answer."

"One of those, you had to have been there." Muttered Phage numbly. She was too preoccupied trying to decipher what symbols was he drawing on her stomach. She could not place a one of them.

"You came from a soft world." Another pattern. Another digit trailing up and then down the seams. "War took what little Cybertron had. Those that survived hardened up."

"So I'm what?" She said carelessly, attention half on the conversation and half on what in the world he was doodling on her.

She could not see him clearly, but his optics flickered up, seeing her optics pass the visor. "A callback."

"I am _not_ defective."

She finally decided that it was probably just that—_doodles_. But it felt so...intimate. Like everything else he was doing so far. Doodling was something that she occasionally did after overloading with Optimus. She would just lay curled up beside him, or atop of him, and absently trace circles and random shapes on the panes of his glass.

It was so strange that Megatron was doing that to her. On her stomach. Before he even fragged her.

__He is not blessing-slash-cursing your core to suddenly be fertile and accept his black coding. He is not. Megatron is not Russian. He does not have Russian-level cursing powers.__

Her thoughts stalled as another symbol was drawn.

__...Although, he is from Kaon. Is that Russian equivalent? Oh god, that might be Cybertron's Russian equivalent.__

A low husky laugh rumbled from his chassis. "I never said you were defective. It seems you misunderstand me as well." His digits followed a seam trail leading down her thigh and around to her port plating. "You're a callback to more bountiful days."

Phage jerked in his grasp, twisting sharply and squeaked as his digits traced the seam on her port plating. A spike of anxiety struck straight through her and did not go away when his pointer digit returned to her thigh, picking at the soft alloy between the armor.

"Well _mediator._" His lips continued to flirt against her audio receptor as he spoke. "Your new function is to ease tensions, is it not." His voice rose loud enough to be heard by Optimus. "Why do we not start by telling Optimus what you like about me. I keep hearing how speaking well of another is a good starting ground."

She could feel her vocal modular atrophying and a string of curses and ill suited names thrown at him spilled through her processes.

"No need to be shy."

Phage had to resist snorting.

"Nothing." Phage was not entirely sure how she managed to slip the word pass the hard lump in her throat but her snark remark did not sit well with him. His digits squeezed her waist hard enough to induce pain. Taking it in stride, Phage pressed her lips together into a tight defiant frown. Her stance stiffened as the mounting pain intensified.

"Honesty," Megatron rasped, "is something I always reward." His optics narrowed before he added, "If you remember."

"Come now, Megatron." Optimus suddenly interjected from across the way. "You reward no one."

In a flash, Megatron's hold loosened on her as his attention diverted to Prime and snapped off. "I reward the few that earn it."

As the two traded barbs, Phage desperately tried to fight against the _honest_ response that wanted to drag itself from her mouth. The muscle under her right optic began twitching incessantly as she mentally warred against the virus. Slowly, she began to fail against it. Her lips snapped apart to give her the gap she needed to suck down air to say-

"Your..._voice_." The admission came out in a strained hiss and silenced the both of them at once. It was small victories that her brain module would not let her traitorous glossa expound on the myriad words she wanted to use to express his voice.

The tension lessened, and Megatron's thumb began to message the area he had just tried to bruise. Phage tried desperately not to reflect on how good that little bit of pressure felt on her tense muscle-cables.

"Anything else?"

His words were as dangerous as smoke on water. Tantalizing and alluring, drawing unwary listeners out into the water to drown... She bit her bottom lip in hopes that that would somehow keep her traitorous voice sealed away. There came a low throaty snort of amusement from Megatron before he nipped the top of her audio receptor, eliciting yet another curt little squeak and small jump from her.

"Do not fight me."

"You have a _nice_..." Oh god, dear god, fighting it was as strenuous as Ratchet warned her it would be. She had never bothered to pay attention to any difficulties before now. Had no reason to suspect that Megatron had been plotting any of _this_. She had been more concerned that he would turn around one day and ask her to phase out someone's spark. She had felt she would have had the iron will to resist something like that. But _this_. Where she had to agree prior...all her priorities were so screwed. "-_Physique_." The word strained to get out in the open. "I have always loved... the Classic body."

"Classic?" The lint in his timbre exemplified his curiosity and amusement. She was certain he was throwing shade at Optimus across the way.

Perspiration beaded on her forehead as she tried to fight the Decepticon engineered Altihex Virus.

"_Phage_." Drawled Megatron.

Her central processor reeled. How could her designation sound that good coming from him?

"Art term to define the Classical period in Greece. To describe their portrayal of masculinity across their artwork. Broad shoulders...slender hips...athletic body... The inverted pyramid. Oh! Or –or it was the Hellenistic Period? It slips... The red trim you've added is...very...striking too-And the minimalist scrawl work was a nice touch!"

The words out, she gasped hard for breath.

"Was that so difficult?" Candied gratification rung in his voice.

"Optimus's body is the exemplified specimen." She shot off quick to soil his small victory. She felt it was the only thing she _could_ do.

It earned her a hiss from the mech and a pinch at her thigh were his digits were teasing her living metal skin between the seams. It went without saying that it hurt, or that she was more successful at concealing the pain than the pleasure he was inducing. "Silence."

In the brief reprieve that followed, Phage began to fear what other ploys Megatron was plotting to mortify her in front of Optimus. Half of her wished he would just get this whole thing over with. The other hoped that somebody would barge in and save both Optimus and her from Megatron's tactics..

...Antics? She wondered. ...Sudden devious sexual desires? Perhaps that was better wording for-

She crashed the senseless meandering thoughts and rebooted.

_This is just another evening with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker._ She just had to keep telling herself that over and over. _Loosen up. _She bemoaned her own thoughts. _For the crew—no. For your 'Bots. Keep that in mind. Try-oh gawd I can't believe I'm going to say this, Phage ol' girl, try to enjoy this. Scream at Optimus later._

_Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, _the chant took up again in her cranium.

As his left hand mapped out her seams, his right cradled her chin and forced it at an angle. His lips ghosted her jawline. Each small peck sparked a warmth that seeped into her living metal flesh and left her reeling at the gentle, lover-esque display of affection. None of his behavior was anything like what she had expected.

"There is so much more than what Phage is letting on, Optimus." Megatron said between the feather-light pecks. "Why, we use to have the most engaging conversations during her..._stay_." He nipped her chin. Then, his right hand cupped her shoulder strut and began inching down. "Philosophy, history, musical taste-"

She was not sure how it was possible that his touch could made her skin crawl while his warm hand felt so good.

__Not Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Not Sunstreaker and Sideswipe-!__

"Will you quit it." Said Phage meekly.

"-I daresay she grew on me. And I know the connection I sensed was mutual. How often was it that your optics lingered overdue on me? Why do you not tell Optimus. He deserves to know."

The color of her cheeks deepened in shade as her jaw went slack. There was no denying the truth from the mortification blatant on her face. Her optics had wandered to the Decepticon lord while she was his hostage. Over time, she had caught herself running troublesome thoughts...trying to sympathize and then romanticizing the powerful warlord. When she had finally escaped, she had rationalized her experience to Stockholm Syndrome.

Behind her visor, Phage squeezed her optics shut.

_Just another night with the Twins. Just another—damn it all._

"Go to hell."

A low, short lived chuckle rumbled from Megatron's chassis. Quietly, he said for her audios alone, "I should have claimed you back then. Against your workstation." Behind the visor, Phage's optics widened not just at the admission, but at also how it made her fuel pump clench and at the warmth that it ignited in her core. "You would still be mine and wearing my badge."

There was the possessive usage again. 'His.' Now 'mine.'

She did not want to think what would have happened if he had—if events had...

All thought processes crashed when Megatron rubbed his olfactory along her jawline, up to her audio receptor then out to her cheekbone, making a bypass to graze his denta on her audio receptor. All in show for Optimus she soon realized, as Megatron leaned his cranium against the top of hers, his chin coming just above her audio and announced loud enough for the first time for Prime to hear.

"There is an injustice that has come to my attention."

__What?__

"You prepared a speech, Megatron?" She did not think she had ever heard Optimus's tone come off before as deadpan. "Really."

"Every momentous occasion calls for one."

__Oh gawd. ____Wait—__**_**momentous**_**__, my aft, fragging serial-__

"As I was saying, there is an injustice that has come to my attention and I can no longer stand to see the injustice continue. So, I take action..." The long dramatic pause that followed was meant to see if Optimus would interject, but when he did not rise to take the bait Megatron continued unfazed. "It always begins with me and it always goes like this."

_Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. _She tried to continue the chant while she silently boiled on the spot. _Sunstreaker and Sideswipe..._

A small sharp noise escaped Phage's lips when Megatron's right hand touched the sensitive nerves behind her knee guard. His warm digits remained fixed there as she shifted in his grasp, grinding against him. Once she settled, his digits squeezed and...

Oh, oh that actually felt...nice. Was he, massaging the muscle cables...? She had no idea his touch could be so light, like...like Op's. She _was_ always sore...If he could just keep doing that... Damn it all, she needed a day at a spa. With a masseuse. That would be ideal. Did Cybertronians even have a masseuse equivalent job position? Did Ratchet qualify?

Seemingly at random, he picked a seam of her design and his warm digits traveled upward feather-light at an agonizingly slow pace that set her already hypersensitive nerves ablaze and her to squirm and grind against him again. It was not long before his right hand stalled on the band of her waist guard, the pressure of his hand surprisingly light yet prominent.

Phage's optics darted from Megatron's black matte hand resting languidly and with all familiarity on her hip plate and leapt back up to find Optimus's gaze across the way. Still he had not moved. Still he had been unable to remove his optics from them. She was certain that Optimus's attention had zeroed in on Megatron's hand with the ire of a keen edged blade with all the desire to lance the offending appendage off and frustrated that he could not.

She could feel Megatron's derma spread into a wide smile against her audio.

"I begin by taking what I want." He announced again in a casual manner. He squeezed her hip. Phage was utterly still, waiting for him to break the band. Across the way Optimus tensed.

And then his digits lifted to the tips and continued along his pre-chosen path. Phage had just started to release the breathe she had not known she was withholding when she reversed the outflow. His digits ghosted up along the curve of her waist, tracing along the seams of her base form. Ever higher and higher. The faint signals had set her to squirming once again, when his digits suddenly disappeared from the map of her body-

There was a sudden metallic click of latches disengaging. Before Phage realized what was happening, Megatron had found and expertly released the clasp for her breastplate. The right latch swung free, pulling loose from her chest. An unbecoming squeak tore from her lips as she watched, stunned, as Megatron seized the loose exodermal armor and tore it off the rest of the way, snapping and breaking the left latch and tossing the offending armor across the war room where it hit the floor in a ruckus, bounced a few times, then skirted to a stop at Optimus's pedes.

Not one to waste an element of surprise, Megatron seized both her breasts in the palms of his hands and squeezed.

"Bountiful days." Reiterated Megatron softly, and began fondling her breasts and teasing the sensitive external nodes. Stunned once again by his expert touch, Phage's cranium fell back against the breadth of his shoulder strut and moaned at the rush of pleasurable sensations.

She had no idea how he was so skilled, but every squeeze, brush, pinch and roll elicited some new reaction from her. Every sound he devoured, storing it all for later recall, and redoubled his efforts until he had her writhing in his grasp, grinding her aft against his codpiece shamelessly.

Only for her audios, Megatron inclined his cranium inward and whispered intoxicatingly sweet, "You are so responsive." The earnest praise was slow acting candied poison. His derma grazed her audio. "Are you like this for Optimus, too?"

She choked on her own voice, not daring to trust herself enough not to tell him to throw himself from the air lock or exactly how she acted with Optimus. Neither situation was ideal. She managed to keep both responses sealed tight behind gleaming denta.

Tossing a wicked smile Prime's way, Megatron said as an aside from his speech. "I am going to enjoy this latest model, Prime. You have never taken one with so much curve before." He squeezed her breasts in show for Prime then laughed suddenly, dry and throatily. "There's enough of her for the two of us."

Optimus blustered up to make a retort, but Megatron cut him off by pinching the external node on Phage's right breast. The femme squealed, jerking violently. The action cut Prime off dead in his tracks, his optics widening to round saucers. A perfect match to what Megatron imagined was his tortured, slack jawed mouth behind the battle mask.

More of his brand of dry, scratching laughter ensued as Megatron made sure Optimus had a full view of events to come before falling easily back into the flow of his improvised speech. "As I was saying, I take what I want and at first the higher authorities do not pay me any mind. What I want is only so small. Nothing serious. Nothing that upsets the system."

She whined, actually whined quite pitifully, when his left hand abandoned her breast and drifted downwards. The large masculine digits traced the seams of her base form as they converged on the metal band of her waist guard. The path of his hand paused only momentarily, and then pushed downwards, over the lip of the metal belt and curved to the junction between her legs. Phage squealed and bucked against him. On instinct her legs tightened, but it only locked his hand between her thighs where his digits could continue their masterful teasing.

There was a smile in his words as Megatron continued over her squeals of protest, easily supporting her weight as she buckled forward in his strong arms. He forced her to straighten back out and pulled her flush against him. "In time the math does not add up. There is an integer left hanging, a point-decimal that keeps climbing. Then, they notice."

She _noticed_ when he began teasing the erogenous zone of her inner thigh and how he seemed to enjoy fondling her right breast. A fresh bout of unbecoming high pitched squeals poured from her lips as she writhed in his grasp. That again redoubled as his pointer finger traced the seam of her port panel. The muscle cables in her legs spasm and clenched around his hand repeatedly.

"They notice me." He murmured for her alone.

She _noticed_ the burning desire he had managed to stroke into existence in her abdomen.

_Natural body reactions. _She tried to tell herself._ Just—another night-with Sunny. That's all this is._

In the heady fog that was descending swiftly across her processor Phage found her jerky motions had settled into a more rhythmic pattern, grinding herself against Megatron's prominent codpiece. Her mind lamented how badly she wanted Optimus in her. Had been wanting him all the whole damn day, as Jazz had so astutely called her out on. Not Megatron. She did not want-

"I..." She tried to beat through the fog to formulate words and stop her grinding. The later was a little more difficult to do. The small warmth in her port had grown to an insistent rod of fire. She realized too late that she did not know what she was going to say to begin with and finally said lamely, "This isn't what I thought this would be."

All of a sudden, Megatron ceased his ministrations. Her processor reeled at the abrupt lack of sensations and, incredibly, missed it. All around her, she felt Megatron's frame rumble with his brand of dry, scratching laughter. "I am never what anyone expects." From her peripheral vision she caught sight of the smile that curled across Megatron's lips. It was astonishing, mesmerizing. "Not at least in the beginning."

Phage desperately struggled to grasp at reason. "I thought...I thought this was going to be a- - a wham bam kind of thing. Not—_Ah_!" She flinched, gasping as Megatron bit the curve of her neck.

Motion from Optimus caught both their attention. He had flinched. All of the sudden, she could Sense Optimus, a distant tendril presence in her mind attempting to subtly reestablish connection. How long had it been like that? How long had her blocks been down?

Enough dread spilled through the heady fog in Phage's processor to ignite her fleeing reason. What she feared would happen—was. She must have dropped the mental ward already—not her fault. And scrambled to shore it back up. It was too mortifying knowing that Optimus could Sense her arousal. Could physically feel what Megatron was doing to her. Wait-

Did Megatron understand _what_ he was doing to them? Was he teasing her like this to rile Prime?

Before she could expound on the humiliating ramifications of that notion, her concentration was broken by Megatron yet again as he soothed the pain away from his bite under a flurry of tender kisses.

Confusion reigned on the first kiss. Come the second, and then the third, she registered what he was doing. Each little kiss sent a small shock wave rippling through her systems. It was electric. Chemical. Additive. Seeping into her living metal flesh like sugared poison.

Just as the pain was beginning to ebb, Megatron nipped her again, drawing another yelp. The cycle repeated over and over.

Of everything that she had imaged would happen, she had never given a nanoklik over to the idea of him kissing her. It was such an intimate thing that it baffled her entirely that Megatron was lavishing her with them at all. In actually, his entire behavior, the whole way he was going about this, was confounding her. This was not the aggressive fragging she thought it would be. This was more the attentions of a passionate lover.

Somehow she managed to gasp out the singular word that was plaguing her central processor. "__Kisses___?_"

Megatron paused, optics flickering to glance hers beneath her visor. He murmured against her neck, "I told you I could play nice." He returned to his maddening task of nipping and kissing her down along her neck, across her shoulder strut and back again.

All remainder of her rational thoughts flat-lined. Phage gave in to the moment.

Just as she was relaxing into his attentions, his lips left off her neck. In his absence, the cool air of the war room came as a shock to her systems. To her disbelief, she found she did not just miss the heat, she wanted it back.

"By the time anyone realizes what I am truly about, it is too late." Continued Megatron. "My stance against has spread like wildfire through the system. Consuming the masses."

Her whole body was aflame with desire under his touch.

His right hand left off its erogenous torture on her breast and reappeared to tangle itself in the mass of her omni-hair. Each of her omni-directional strands coiled around his arm, an unconscious habit that she had with Optimus. By the time she realized she was doing it was when Megatron seized the mass of it and yanked her cranium back. He swooped in, capturing her lips with his own in a hungry, demanding kiss. The kiss was like a sudden bolt of molten lead dripped straight through her system and into her core. There it settled, the warmth radiating outward through the rest of her traitorous body and igniting a glow across her cheeks.

The glow of her visor flared in intensity, shock settling in hard at the effect Megatron was inducing within her. Suddenly overcome by a wild fear of her own desires, Phage tried to fall backwards but his hold tightened in her omni-hair, keeping her upright and steady.

The campaign he had rambled about for the last hour had begun in earnest.

Traitorous thoughts seeded in her processor and grew. Was Megatron rough in the berth? Wild? She needed more. So much more. This was so different from how Optimus loved her. With Megatron there was an immediate promise of passion that teased to be rough with every little nip and nick of his denta to the probing digits that paused to test her, squeezing just a little too hard but not hard enough, to the pressure of his lips against hers that demanded he give her everything about herself over to him.

As she began to drown in startling speculations Megatron suddenly pulled back, glossa, lips, receding from her and she trailed after him, needing so much more of the chemical fire his lips induced that set off a wild fireworks in her system.

Dolefully, Phage's optical lids fluttered open, uncertain of when she had closed them. Megatron's smug smile and bright, fierce red optics greeted her.

"Some would say," his voice dipped into sultry tones, his lips teasing her swollen post-smooch lips with every utterance of a syllable, "I spread like poison."

_Yes. Yes I can see that,_ she thought.

"When I set out on an attack," His breath was harsh against her living metal skin, a sharp contrast to the cold room. "I never do anything rashly." There was another odd metallic noise, and for the life of her Phage could not figure out what it was. "There is always a purpose."

With a sudden jolt of shock, the cold air kissed her exposed port. Since this had began, Phage jumped for the umpteenth time. Too late, she realized, Megatron had found and triggered the manual release on her port panel. She gasped and squirmed, another harder high kneed breath exhaled pass her lips as Megatron's digits teased the entrance.

Spasming in his embrace, Megatron's digits traced over her port's sensitive external node then shivered when he buried his face into the nap of her neck and trailed his glossa along her neck cables. When he reached her jawline he nipped it lightly and said softly for her alone. "So responsive. The things I would do to you if he was not here."

Tangible words failed her as she tried to protest, coming out instead in a low keening moan.

An eager thrum hummed from Megatron when he pushed his pointer digit into her port and found it slid in effortlessly. Phage bucked hard at the intrusion, gasping just as forcibly. Again, Megatron had to force her flush against him. Again, yanking her back by her omni-hair. It smarted badly, but sensations of pleasure mixed with pain in a toxic concoction as his thumb teased her port's external node while his pointer digit curled and stroked the inner walls of her valve. Her legs tightened around his hand as her body convulsed and shuddered. The rest of reality quickly dissolved away until Megatron's presence was her only anchor to the outside world.

"You must want me more than you let on, Phage." His words were like her favorite brands of engex, smooth with a burn. "You are so slick." She could hear the smile in his words and just catch the warm glow of his crimson optics from her peripheral. "Unlike most, I will not need to add another digit. I could take you right now." Her cheeks flushed a vibrant energon hue. She was not sure if she should even be embarrassed, and a part of her felt she should not. Optimus did rather, well, they did frag quite a lot. At this point, her body was just adapted to Optimus's spike.

Inwardly, Phage groaned as the present conversation reminded her of her chat with Jazz not long before. She almost missed it when Megatron asked:

"Would you like that?" Each word rolled off of his glossa slow and with delicate attention to proper pronunciation.

"What?"

His denta slowly grazed her audio receptor and then kissed it. "Would you like me inside you?"

Phage wanted to scream at him 'why are you doing this?' Instead, she found her breath hitching. Her throat constricting. She fought hard against the virus that demanded she bend to him. Hard enough that she began to develop a processor ache. Hard enough, that a new wave of perspiration collected on her forehead. Her jaw muscles ached to answer him while she fought to keep her mouth closed. All in an effort to edit her speech or prevent it entirely when all she wanted to do was blurt out everything and tell him all he wanted to know and more.

Dryly, Megatron only chuckled at her antics.

"Such _resolve_." She thought it sounded more like he was mocking her than praising her. "Under such circumstances, I would normally have another Brand burned into a mech. A double hit always seems to resolve issues of disobedience. Although," he mused aloud and felt his attention shift. "I do not believe Optimus would be too fond if I did. Oh-wipe that look off your face, Optimus." His hand let go of her omni-directional hair only for his digits to curl around her jaw and force her cranium back into the crook of his neck. Olfactory pressed into him, Phage could smell his unique metallic scent. "I find her conflict amusing."

Her lips flickered, wanting to curl into a snarl.

"Just like back at the cave-in on Mercury."

The snarl died, replaced with Phage's utter confusion.

Across the way, Optimus's optical ridges furrowed. "What happened at the cave in?"

It seemed like an age since last she had heard his voice. His soothing deep vocals were marred with concern, alarm, yet served as a guiding light in the heady fog in her processor. She wanted to Reach back out to him. Wanted him to help keep her steady. Then remembered why she had shut him out before and resisted the urge.

"Nothing." Megatron echoed Phage's earlier conviction to Jazz. Then, he nuzzled her neck with his olfactory, slow and possessive. Pausing at her rapid pulsing fuel line to rest against it. "Is that not right, Phage?"

At the moment that she would have answered in the affirmative, Megatron's thumb stroked her port node at just the right angle that it triggered a jolt of pleasure to shoot through her.

Her optics flared. "Y-yeees!" The pleasure mingled with the positive endorphin hit from the virus as she concurred with the silver mech. Her processor drowned in strong but pleasant chemical responses.

She felt the wide cyber-wolf smile play across his lips. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing. His words from earlier came back to her from a far off and distant place-He did nothing rashly and always with purpose.

"That was enthusiastic." Megatron crooned. "Was it a double concurrence to my earlier question?" He repeated the motion from before again and again, eliciting similar powerful shudders from her. The cries that began to pour from her lips were broken and wanton. "Those are not proper answers, Phage. Nor proper words."

Abruptly, Megatron ceased his ministrations on her port and withdrew entirely. Phage moaned at its loss and nearly growled with frustration

Damn it all, but she desperately needed-

All of a sudden Megatron grabbed her jaw and forced her lips apart. Before she could process the whys, he shoved his pointer digit into her mouth and commanded, "Lick it clean."

Some functioning corner of her processor struggled to make a connection and correct her earlier notion. This _was_ like sex with Sunstreaker-demanding, dominating prick that he was. And...and like with Garrison-oh, oh gawd. She had a problem, and dominating mechs was not exactly one of them.

She actually, oh gawd. She missed this. Optimus didn't...wouldn't treat her like this. Not unless she asked. And then it was never like she needed it. And she...

With growing gusto, Phage sucked his digit long after the taste of her had disappeared. Memories flooded back to her of her previous escapades with the Lamborghini Twins. Wild, lust-filled imaginings occupied her reasoning. If she could have them _both_-she didn't care who fragged her port while she sucked the others spike, so long as they klanked her senseless.

"So enthusiastic." Megatron repeated with another chuckle. "Optimus, how dare you keep her all to yourself."

Another subtle series of clicks and components whirling to life confounded her muddled processor. The enigma was quickly resolved when something large and hot pressed against her legs from behind, forcing its way between her warm thighs. Phage let off sucking his digit to give out a curt little shriek, initially shocked at the sensation, but she had no illusions to what it was when it brushed along her port and teased her external node. Only to slowly withdraw and then return, teasing along her slick port once again. Then again withdrew and returned to tease her with its promise.

Disjointed thoughts tried to string themselves together in her processor. Was he...thicker than...? She had thought Optimus was...No, no that was ridiculous. They had to be the same size-

Thought processes flat-lined.

A breathless plea spilled from her lips. "Oh...God! I-"

Megatron shoved his digit back into her mouth. "Did I tell you you could stop?"

Phage moaned piteously around the digit, burning in the fire he had stroked to life inside her. The languid gyrations teased her endlessly with the long agonizing torture of the threat of his spike.

"I hope you have a good view, Prime." Laughed Megatron, thrusting forward til his spike appeared between her thighs, then retreated. "I have tried to give you the best private viewing I could provide."

Quiet as a mountain, Optimus stood rooted to his spot, hands balled into fists at his side and trembling.

Megatron's infuriating smirk would not die. "I do expect such kind reciprocation in the future."

Winding her up had been easier than he had thought, and no less enjoyable for it. But he needed more than what she was providing so far. He needed to alleviate his own burning desires.

His crimson optics narrowed on Optimus across the way, meeting his fixed gaze with his own. "How are you fairing, Optimus? Still _tense_? Still _unreasonable_? Still unwilling to bend to me?"

As Optimus's fists flexed and clenched Megatron beamed a serpents smile his way. "I see. Well, how about this."

He pulled his pointer finger from Phage's mouth. As with his hungry kisses before she trailed after it. Her lust-addled senses only fed the grin that was already threatening to split his cranium in half.

Megatron seized her hip and forced her to glide along his spike, slicking it with her lubricants. When he felt he had worked them both up to the highest plane they could reach, he grazed her audio receptor with his denta again. "You want me." He whispered hotly.

A strangled moan slipped pass her clenched denta.

"Everything is fine, Phage. Go on. Tell Optimus the truth of your desires. Tell him."

Instead she bit her bottom lip, squeezing her optics shut and swung her cranium from side to side in the negative.

His attention flickered to Prime and back to Phage, the grin never faltering.

All at once, the teasing ride stopped with the broad, flat head of his spike poised at her port entrance. A swell of frustration burned through her. The teal femme swallowed a scream and tried to gyrate against his spike but he held her firmly locked in place, her back against his broad frame.

"Now, now..." His voice cooed into her audio. "You never answered me."

Her mind reeled. What-?

He was kind enough to reiterate his earlier question. "Do you want me inside you?"

With the question came a steady controlled roll of his hips that pushed the head of his spike into her port. Phage shuddered and clenched around him, drunk on lust and wild about the notion of a spike that large entering her...

And he pulled out.

A string of profanity screamed through her mind that she could not for the life of her give proper voice too. Damn it all to high hell, but she needed a fat throbbing spike in her right now and if she couldn't have Optimus-

"Yes." She hissed against his neck.

"What was that Phage? I do not believe Optimus heard you. Why do you not _enunciate_ louder so he can hear."

__Bastard___._

"Yes!" Phage shouted in desperation. "Yes, already! Yes!" Each concurrence with his will was another release of the positive chemicals from the virus. Between the Altihex Virus chemicals and interfacing chemicals, her brain module was drowning all remaining reasoning. "Will one of you just frag me already!"

"Will one of us?" Megatron crooned into her audio. "Why not the both of us, Phage?"

Across the way, Optimus flinched again, taken aback by the mere suggestion while Phage wasn't sure if she should be praising the higher powers that be that Megatron was suddenly a telepath.

"One of you—both-I-I don't care!"

Megatron shot a long conniving, denta-flashing grin Prime's way that made the Autobot Commander shift his weight from pede to pede.

His left arm wrapped around her waist as his right adjusted his grasp on her neck. His hips rolled forward, and Phage sucked down air as the head of his spike pushed pass the lips of her port, teasing her valve with his girth-

-and withdrew once again.

This time, Phage did scream. Arms pinned at her sides, her digits clenched and uncurled as she writhed in his grasp to try and break free so she could take matters into her own damn hands, but Megatron held her fast and securely against him. The maddening rocking motions continued. For every entreat he made into her she tried to constrict around him and hold him desperately, wild to draw him further into her and keep him there to put out the fire he had fanned inside her.

Again and again, he retreated and returned. Visited and left. He perused the matter for so long that it became an unspoken promise.

"Tease!" Phage screamed accusingly.

Megatron's laughter echoed in her brain module.

"Wh-what _are_ you _doing_?" Near wild, Phage shrieked the words desperately.

Roughly, Megatron forced her cranium to turn towards him. He promptly devoured her stumbling syllables with another impassioned kiss. It was minutes before he drew back, leaving her gasping for air to cool her systems.

"I already said. _Sampling_ you." His white derma pressed against her audio receptor and whispered, "Before I take what belongs to me."

Spurred on by her unfulfilled need, a flash of rebellion sparked in her like a vibrant chemical fire. Her lips curled up at one corner. "I belong to Optimus—_Ieesh_!"

At her opposition, Megatron bit her neck and did not soothe away the pain with kisses. Then, to her shock, he roughly discarded her from the warmth of his frame.

Her whole world spun suddenly and nearly hit the floor on trembling legs. Megatron seized her wrist before she could, whipping her back around, vision shifting dramatically from Optimus Prime and halting jarringly back on the warlord. Both his large hands gripped her shoulders painfully as he loomed over her.

"You. Belong. To. me."

"No." She grit back between shaky breathes, reasoning returning slowly. "I don't."

His hand came up and Phage flinched. Rather than the slap that she thought would come, Megatron snatched her circlet-helm and tore it from her cranium. The half helm came away easily taking her visor with it and exposing her red optics beneath.

An overwhelming sense of exposure struck her hard. Moreso than when he had removed her breastplate and exposed her port panel.

"You belong to me." He reiterated, each solemn word burned into her audios. The last rung came when, with an uncharacteristic carelessness, Megatron tossed her headgear aside to clang across the war room before it too skirted to a stop somewhere out of her reach and out of sight. His digits curled around her chin, drawing her back into his orbit.

He shifted forward, nudging her omni-hair aside with his olfactory so he could whisper conspiratorial tones into her audio receptor. "I made you what you are." Languidly he shifted again, trailing his olfactory across her face, bumping hers on the way to her other audio receptor. "I forged you into this. Gave you purpose. You can pretend as long as you like that you are an Autobot, but you can never deceive yourself." He nipped her audio receptor and continued biting along her jawline, uttering between his teasing as he edged nearer her lips. "You can feel the Decepticon coding deep down, writhing through your systems. You know I am right, Flamewar."

The Decepticon designation she had been christened with when she was Altihexed had a sobering affect on her processor. It triggered a violent reaction.

The ensuing slap echoed and died around the war room. Warring emotions conflicted within Phage. Deep buried rage and indignation rolled into the next moment of shock at her own actions. She knew her temper had been getting worse and worse over the years and bursting up to the surface in unpleasant ways...

Phage reigned violently back against the shock that wanted to give way to meekness and held on to the anger. As Megatron took a moment to register the slap and adjust his jaw to a tight clenched frown, she tried to shove him aside. His heavier bulk rooted him to his spot, so all she managed to succeed in doing was pushing her own self back.

"Get away from me!" Phage snarled. Her hands gesticulated in a dramatic slash. "We are _done_ here."

Before she could make it more than a step, the fierce burning glow of his optics pinned her to her spot. "No." The word rumbled off his glossa like the threat of a thunderstorm. "We are not."

Phage tried to edge toward Optimus, his name already leaving her lips before she realized she was intoning it as if it were a protective ward. "Optimu-s!"

Megatron's arm struck out like lightening and seized a fistful of her omni-directional strands. He yanked her back, a curt cry of protest spilling from her lips.

"He will not help you. Not while I threaten to annul the Alliance-"

"Yes I would, Megatron!"

Megatron's attention snapped around in time to catch Prime as he cut across the war room at an unprecedented speed, closing the gap between them in as little of his long legged strides as possible.

Before they could collide, Megatron yanked Phage out from him in one arm, holding her by her writhing omni-hair at arms length from Prime. With his right, he caught the enraged Prime with an open palm against his chassis.

"_Remember_ what I said." Growled Megatron.

"Enough is _enough_." Optimus's engine came back at Megatron with a roaring rev. "Release. Her."

"I thought you would make any sacrifice for the safety of the crew, Prime. You know this. I know this. It is practically the law of your very nature."

Prime tried to maneuver around Megatron to get at Phage, but the silver mech kept stepping to block his path. Kept a tighter hold on Phage's omni-hair to keep her from him.

"I get it." Megatron teased, lips curling at one corner. "You want to partake."

The glare Prime shot at Megatron was laser edged and deadly, backed by yet another angry rev of his engine.

"Don't tell me that little spat set you off? Looked to me like its a common practice for the two of you."

"_Release. Her._"

"She's _fine_, Prime. I said before that she can deal with rough handling."

A sharp kick to the back of his knee took him off guard. Megatron bent, but recovered balance quickly. His attention snapped around to Phage and glowered back at her belligerent frown.

"Wild, temperamental..." He seethed.

Phage tried to kick out at him again, but he jerked her off balance.

"Will you-" Megatron began, quickly reassessed his stratagem as Prime tried to overtake him and shoved him back hard. His cranium swiveled around to account for the greater threat and roared into his face. "_Sit. _**Down**_!_"

Optimus swatted his hand aside and made an advance to tackle, but Megatron shoved him back hard again, this time planting Optimus straight into one of the many empty chairs circling the holotable.

"Stay." Megatron barked off. Then added, "Clearly you are unaccustomed to how these things work."

"I would not put it pass you to know." Growled Prime darkly.

"Careful who you are condemning here, Optimus." And he jerked Phage into his field of vision. "Your latest conjunx is far from pure of spark."

"Tch!" Phage gripped absently as she tried to force Megatron's digits apart and was failing miserably. "Pure of heart—the grass really is greener—wait." Her digits stilled, glancing between the two. "Who am I agreeing with here?"

"_Me_." Megatron exclaimed and shook her once when her optics wavered towards Prime. "Do not look at him. You look at me." He yanked his hand back with a fistful of her omni-hair. Frustrated and growling, Phage was forced to bend over backwards to follow his arm. His face filled her vision, crimson sun optics burrowing into her own. "I am the only thing that matters."

"Fuck. You."

"Crude. But those _were_ my sentiments exactly. Glad to see we are still on the same page."

"I get it now. I do. This is what you like best, isn't it? Feisty-" Phage slapped the arm holding her. "Temperamental-" and again hit his arm, "-lovers. That's why you keep asking if Op and my bickering is prelude to foreplay." She gave up on hitting him, realizing he just was not going to let her back up to an upright position unless he wanted it so. Phage frowned up at him. "If I had realized that our bantering would have led to this, I would have stayed quiet around you."

"I doubt your restraint."

As Phage began spluttering indignantly, she found herself swept off her pedes in a careless, rough toss that sent her fuel intakes flying high, before Megatron caught her. Just as she was processing the treatment, her whole world tilted crazily as she was thrown. The iridescent blue hologram of the Sol System distorted and dispersed around Phage as she collided back first against the flat surface.

"Megatron!"

Having predicted Optimus's reaction, Megatron whirled in time and caught Prime square in the chassis with his pede as he made a leap out of the chair and pinned him back to his seat. He leaned into the weight, leering over his knee guard into Prime's baleful glare. "She is fine, Optimus. I keep telling you this." A quirk of a grin smoothed over the corner of his lips. "This is just a sample of how rough interfacing looks like. Stay seated and you can enjoy the show." Optimus's hands abused the ends of the arm rests until the metal whined in protest. Megatron glanced between Optimus's digits and back to his optics.

"We can do this one of several ways you know." He said at length. "You can watch, like you always do when I take what is mine and react _later_, or you can join me on the battlefield _now_."

"Do me a favor." Prime grit. "And shut up."

Their charged gazes held, then seeming to come to a decision himself, Megatron shrugged flippantly and took his pede off Prime's chassis. He cast him a weary glance and shook a digit at him. "Stay." He started back towards Phage, paused, and did a double take towards Optimus and added, "I will get back to you."

He did not miss the shock and then concern that widened Prime's optics.

Dazed by the toss, Optimus and Megatron's scuffle was white noise on Phage's audio receptors. Disjointedly, Phage noted the thousands of tiny pinpricks of light it took to comprise just one three dimensional hologram of Jupiter. The longer she stared, a distant memory began to form, nagging and teasing from the back of her processor. Before she could latch onto the tail end of the thought and follow it to its inevitable conclusion, Phage was rudely reminded of her predicament.

Two large hands grabbed her knees. Adrenaline hit her hard. Just as she was lifting herself up to look, Megatron forced her legs apart and placed himself at her junction. His reaction time was better than hers. His black matte hand splayed across her exposed chassis and roughly shoved her back onto the table. Following her down, he kept her pinned to the table beneath his hefty weight. The light of the holotable cast Megatron's face in strange cerulean shadows as he leaned over her, filling her whole vision with his worn visage.

There was a spark pulse's silence that spanned between them. Then, Megatron's lips peeled apart to expose his prominent canines.

"Calm down." Said Megatron softly, the friendly familiarity of the tone throwing Phage for a loop. "If hearing your..._other_ designation upsets you that much, I will refrain."

Skepticism marked her delicate features, her right optical ridge shooting straight up as her right optic narrowed.

"I have to ask, but are you this feisty with Optimus?"

"Tch." Her features fell into a deadpan frown.

Megatron chortled dryly, making slow languid thrusts against her port, reminding her of the fire he had stroked to life in her core and teasing it to reignite. "I said I can play nice, but if you prefer it rough..." Megatron let the implication hang in the air between them. "I can oblige and Optimus will just have to deal."

Jazz's words suddenly smacked her processor hard-klanking meant very loud very improper ruckus. In that moment, she did not doubt that that was likely Megatron's preferred method.

And a part of her _wanted_ it.

It was terrible of her to wonder, without Optimus around to police, what Megatron's brand of interfacing was really like.

As the seconds stretched on between them, a small smile stole across Megatron's lips at her continued muteness.

"Good little femme." His hand came off her chassis and brushed along her thigh, then seized her leg and dragged her aft off the edge of the table. An unintelligent cry of alarm broke pass her lips, ultimately forgotten, as he balanced her weight against his pelvis, making short powerful thrusts that teased his spike along her port's external node.

Emptiness was the space between Phage's audios, rapidly conceding to mute shock and pleasure as Megatron cupped her left breast and began kneading the malleable alloy before turning his attention over to its external node. His ministrations were far from coy, eliciting a mix of pain and pleasure as he squeezed the node repeatedly, testing for her reactions. Every hiss and sigh of pleasure he took into consideration, measuring its worth and repeating motions that rewarded the best results.

Strategist, the notion came broken to her. Megatron brought his strategic processor to whatever field he sought to conquer and hold. When that field happened to be her body, he had her mewling and writhing beneath his ministrations within minutes. The rough bump a quickly fading affair.

Then, Megatron thrust hard against her, enough to move her bodily back onto the holotable and then ducked his right hand between her thighs and plunged his large blunt pointer finger into her port while his thumb stroked the sensitive external node. Phage bucked off the war table with a short shrill shriek.

Her dynamic reaction only encouraged him to keep going.

Seeking solid purchase to anchor herself to a physical realm, Phage's slender fingers clawed uselessly at the table. Finding nothing solid, her hands flew up and latched onto Megatron's left hand that toyed with her breast and would not let go. The fire he had fanned to life and flared again in her core wound itself ever tighter and quicker than before.

"Stop!" Phage whined.

There was a particular unidentifiable expression on Megatron's stern face. Stern for the amount of concentration he was putting forth.

"Beg me." He commanded in his raspy vernacular. He added a second finger to her port. Phage mewled in pleasure, her digits scrambling for a firmer hold to hang on to _something_. The soft laugh that followed from him was as intoxicating as high grade engex.

The fire in her core scaled itself ever higher and higher into bliss.

Half way between being ashamed and not caring, she arched into his grasp and squealed, "Please!" She did not care that she came off sounding desperate and strained. "Ghn-Megatron!"

"No." Came the hard spartan response. After a moment of consideration, he added softly. "You can do so much better than that."

Her lip quivered and she stammered, sensing her overload creeping close. "_O-op!_"

Megatron's thick husky laugh seemed to rumble from all around. "I told you, he is not going to help you—_Will_ you, Prime?" He threw as an aside. So focused on the holo-display and the ceiling overhead, Phage missed the side glance he tossed Optimus's way. Nor did she see the curt agitated shake Prime gave back.

"Of course not." Grinning to himself, Megatron lowered himself over her unattended right breast and latched on to the node, suckling and biting at it in turn.

It was the last nudge Phage needed to send her spiraling over the edge. She came undone, overloading hard on his digits. Her back arched off the holotable and her muscle cables locked up. Her slim digits left off his hand and latched onto his helm, halfway between wanting to shove him off or press his face between the valley of her breasts. Her freedom red lips peeled apart in a voiceless scream and forgot how to breath.

Megatron propped himself on his right elbow joint to marvel at her post glow.

"Beautiful." Megatron rasped. He continued to pump his fingers in and out of her port, his hands quickly becoming coated in her fluids as she trembled all beneath him. "Absolutely beautiful."

Hovering over her, Megatron savored the several minutes it took for her overload to subside. Soft soothing hushes and sweet nothings tumbled from his vocal processor as his free hand stroked along her sides to get her muscle cables to relax and continued the motion until she was able to ease herself back flat on to the table.

His sweet nothings fell on deaf audios. All Phage was aware of was her immediate surroundings. Of Megatron shifting off of her and standing over her. The war table beneath her. Her legs dangling limply off the edge of the holotable. The beautiful lights of the holomatter displaying the Sol System and little motes of dust fluttering into the light before zipping out. She was just thinking how wonderful her overload had been when-

Megatron's attention shifted to Prime seated beside them.

"Optimus..." Megatron said with a devil's grin. "Do you want to see me fill your free downloading port?"

_What? _Phage stirred. Megatron's question a jarring reconnect to reality. _We aren't done?_

Staggered by the abrupt and obscene question directed at him, Optimus visibility jerked as if smacked. Optics wide, Prime stumbled for a reply. When he could not produce one fast enough Megatron snipped, "Yes or no, Optimus. Those are the only responses."

"It would not matter what I answered." Optimus said slowly.

"That is true. I-I wanted to hear you say-" He false started before correcting himself with a curt shake of his cranium.

In the span of a second, Megatron seized Phage's thighs and yanked her roughly off the table and onto her pedes, whipped her around, then shoved her toward Optimus. Startled, Optimus had the reflexes to catch her by her shoulder struts as she tumbled towards him, just as Phage barely had the dexterity to catch herself on the arms of his chair, but hardly the strength after such a hard overload to trust her weight at all.

Under another circumstance it would have been humorous how they mirrored each others gaping expressions.

"I—do not understand, Megatron." Optimus was beginning to say. "Are we done-"

Optimus's words trickled to a halt as Megatron loomed over Phage's shoulder strut. In a nanoklik, he yanked her arms back and wove his arms between hers, locking her arms behind her and up against his sides. Swift footwork had her legs spread apart. Bent double over made her easy access for him to press the blunt head of his large spike against her very exposed and very slick port.

Panic swelled up in her as she recalled her vague estimations of his size at the same time that shock was consuming Optimus's visible features.

"**Wait**!" Phage cried out. "_Waitwaitwait!_"

With an possessive primal growl, Megatron slammed into her port with enough force to rattle her endoskeleton and send her omni-hair bouncing forward to brush Optimus's chassis. Optics flaring with light, Phage writhed and screamed at the intrusion, and redoubled that with broken entreaties to a god that would never answer when Megatron began jack hammering her. Her vocalizations became fuel for his flame.

And Optimus sat there in shock, as Megatron klanked his femme over his lap.

"Oh god! Oh—God! Op-! _Optimus_-!"

"Go _on_, Optimus." Megatron was laughing throatily. "She said she wanted us both!"

A broken, high pitched keening noise tore from Phage's throat, swiftly followed by more pleasure addled cries as the war room filled with their fervent klanking.

"You scream like one of the free downloaders from the gladiatorial pits, _Phage_." Bent over her backside he breathed into her audio. "Brings back memories."

"Pitt—" Megatron tossed his cranium back with another scratching laugh. "You greedy glitch, Prime! For your constrict, _Phage_ is so _tight_." Abruptly, Megatron bent forward and nipped her neck, causing another low moan to pour from her lips. "And so _slick_." The words rolled off his glossa and fanned against her audio. Over her shoulder strut, Megatron leered at Prime. "She was built for mechs such as you and I! How dare you hoard her all to yourself!"

The punishing pace continued with his powerful strokes, soaking in every scream and moan Phage made. It was only after an indiscernible while that Megatron buried his face between her shoulder blades, where her door panel wings flared out, that his pace changed again into a series of short bursts. Phage's cranium fell forward between her shoulder struts, unrecognizable noises and wanton moans spilling from her alternatively.

Another raspy laugh rumbled from deep in his chassis. Megatron's pace slowed to long powerful strokes. A long, slow withdraw countered with a jarring charge forward that bucked Phage forward, omni-hair, breasts and endoskeleton all. Optimus was forced to watch from the private viewing show on his lap. Forced to watch as Phage gritted her denta, squeezed her optics shut and rode out the overwhelming sensations of pain and pleasure.

"Oh _Phage_, we have not even _started_ and you are so _impatient_." Megatron chided. "So _eager_." Suddenly, Megatron shot Optimus a vicious smile. "Your femme is a free port, Prime." He pulled out to the tip of his spike and slammed back in. The force jerked Phage forward in his arms and into Prime's lap. "The way she _clings_ to my spike you would think she believes I am _you_. Can you get her to moan like this when you are alone with her?" And again he repeated the long hard thrust. Again, Phage jerked forward and sharply moaned. "Are you Sensing her pleasure, Optimus?"

The last barb made Optimus flinch and confirmed Phage's fears.

"No more, Megatron."

"I haven't _finished_."

Optimus's optics hardened to steel to match the cold battle mask. "Whatever you want-"

"Whatever I want?" Megatron released his hold on Phage and pushed her head first into Optimus. Quickly, he gathered a fistful of her omni-hair and forced her to look up at Optimus, where he could see how her face glowed from the interfacing. "What I _want_ is for you to _join_ us, Optimus. Unless of course, you are _enjoying_ the show then I won't impose."

Optimus's jaw clinked when it hit the bottom of his battle mask. "I—you-"

Briefly, Megatron's optics flickered lewdly towards Optimus's codpiece and back. "What are you waiting for, Optimus?" He said with a sudden growl. "Take advantage, Prime. _Touch her. _Touch your femme._"_

When he just continued to sit there, shocked into inaction, Megatron reared back with a savage smile. "Don't tell me that the mysterious and charismatic leader of the Autobots has never once...Optimus! _Really? Through everything you never once sought to engage in this kind of experience to just disconnect from everything?_ Whatever have you been doing with your life?"

That crude question jarred him from his stupor. Rattled, Optimus glared back and growled, "_Not_ engaging in debauchery."

Megatron's face screwed up. "And yet the femme you've chosen to recite the Conjunx Oaths with has." An optical ridge crept up high on Megatron's forehead. "Attempting to live vicariously, Prime?"

Phage's cranium shot up, optics searching his, a sudden damning vulnerability burning sharply through her lust-addled processes. And Optimus could Sense her. All of it. Had been able to for a long while yet. Megatron's taunting had led to a tactless response on his part that stuck in her processor like a barb and would not dislodge. Tormentous thoughts plagued her processor. He could hear every one of them. Every thought that had darkened the validity of her reasons to keep their resonance and go through with the Conjunx Ritus.

She didn't deserve him, what had she been thinking-

All of it tore out his spark worse than anything else Megatron had yet done.

"Am I really going to have to walk you through this Prime? You do with her as you normally would, if it helps pretend I am not here."

Optimus's hands encircled Phage's face and smoothed over her cheeks and carded through her omni-hair. As always happened, the omni-directional strands coiled around his arms. His thumb chased away the tremble from her bottom lip.

_::You were never any of those things.:: _She started to protest back and he cut her thoughts off. _::I said before we were in this together and I meant it.::_

In one swift motion, Megatron withdrew to the tip of his spike and rammed the whole of his girth back into the warm confines of her port. Again, Phage jerked forward with the motion, omni-hair and breasts swaying, and groaned.

Megatron's voice seemed to sound from a far off and distant place. "Why do you not help Optimus out _Phage_? He seems like he needs guidance in these matters."

Her slim hands squeezed his thighs. Across their bond, he felt her feeble attempt to resist Megatron's suggestion. Knew her greater desire to want to just give in. Could hear the mantra she had taken up over and over again in her processor to make everything better:_ Sideswipe and Sunstreaker._

__::Faye.::__

Her optics flickered up to his. It was the first she had dared to look at him and not the spot between his pedes or over his shoulder strut since Megatron shoved her at him. Her body kept jerking forward with every slow, powerful thrust Megatron made into her port.

__:: It's going to be alright.::__

Apprehension and skepticism stared back.

__::We are going to be alright.::__

Several small series of clicks and whirls disrupted the harsh rhythmic pattern Megatron had set. Phage did not have to look to know what Optimus had done.

His left blue hand carded through her omni-hair, taking small familiar pleasures as each strand gently coiled around his arm and slipped off in turn. Gentle as ever, his digits trailed around, down her cheek and cupped her delicate chin. With a small satisfaction, he enjoyed as her cranium tipped into his gentle touch, her optics shuttering close and flickering back open as he traced her swollen lips with his thumb.

Then, he guided her down.

With a massive effort of will, Optimus closed his optics and filtered out everything else around him but Phage and himself. Megatron tried his damnedest to test his limits.

"Much, _much_ better." Megatron gushed.

He had not realized Megatron had stopped altogether until he began thrusting back into his femme. Then began gradually working back up to speed until he had dominated the pace of events, laying an impassioned siege on her port, ramming the gates over and over again. Dissolving her to a shivering mess of pure sensations as she swayed back to meet his charge only to be thrust forcibly forward onto Optimus's spike. Every moan and muffled scream reverberated through Optimus's spike, triggering reactions he had not known would delight him.

It was only the start of events that dominated the time to come.

Optimus could Sense Phage through their Bond as their dark menage ma trios dissolved all reason and thought from her processor in such strong waves that it was crashing over into him. Her whole universe had condensed to just the three of them, of Megatron klanking the life out of her, her lips wrapped around his spike, the feel of him in her mouth and of Megatron in her port, the familiar abandoned lust she could allow herself to dissolve into yet again that she had not had since the Twins.

If Optimus grunted, he was not aware. If his hands sought purchase in the writhing mass of her omni-hair, that was just normal for them. That he closed his optics had everything to do with so he would not have to see Megatron on the other side of his femme, because it boiled the energon in his systems and drove such possessive thoughts into his processor as he had not had to contend with in eons.

Time became a meaningless concept. Phage drowned herself in the gratifying sensations that Megatron was delivering unto her body, reveling in the melting pool that her core had become and the feel and taste of Optimus in her mouth. For all she cared, they could frag her like this for five million years and she would not give a whit. So long as the sex stayed like this.

At some length, Megatron leaned across her back, his hands encircling her slim waist and lavished harsh bites and heated fervent kisses along her neck, shoulder strut and the edging of her door wings, making her moan and her door wings shuddered all over again. Between the tormenting teasing, a string of nothings poured from Megatron's vocal processor.

"You belong to me." The words rolled off his glossa and hit her throat in heated breathes, teasing her senses. Ahead of him, Optimus growled and grunted in turn, steadfastly silent compared to his two vocal lovers. "No—ghnn-matter how often Optimus pours his fluids into you. He can never rid you of my stain. I made you. I forged you into what you are. You. Are. _Mine_."

Between Optimus's digits playing loosely through her omni-hair and Megatron's right hand flirting up her body and squeezing her breast, Phage hit her second overload hard and fast. Soaring to new unfathomed heights of bliss that fried her processor of all reasoning and leaving her a boneless toy for either of their manipulations, held up only by Megatron's tight embrace and her weak arms propped on Optimus's lap. Riding high on her overload, Phage mewled bliss around Optimus's spike and constricted hard around Megatron's.

Abruptly, Megatron bit her shoulder strut hard enough for the metal to whine in protest. Phage jerked off of Optimus's spike, shouting, only to be drowned out by the savage roar that Megatron tried to unsuccessfully drown out against her shoulder strut as he overloaded. The silver mech rammed his spike to its base inside her valve, eliciting yet another scream from Phage as he breached her core and poured his transfluids deep into her inner sanctum. So much of it that Phage felt it ooze around his hard throbbing spike and trickle down her inner thighs.

The silence that swiftly descended the war room following Megatron's deafening overload was a striking contrast from a second before. Phage could hear her fuel pump pounding energon furiously through her systems and the thrum of her spark in her inner audios. Somewhere in the distance the **Ark** creaked as it settled around them. Her breathing came shaky and labored to cool her overheated systems. Gradually she tried to reassemble thought and began with the basic building blocks of self identity and moved up from there.

Megatron buried his cranium in the crook of her neck and began nipping, kissing, and licking at her alternatively, muttering sweet nothings to her in the harsh Decepticon vernacular. His hand glided up her thigh and wrapped lazily around her neck in a loving choke hold, his thumb tracing the pounding fuel line. One word finally stood out from all the others.

"Cybertron."

Phage was not sure when, but she had rested her cranium on Optimus's leg with one slim hand still wrapped around the base of his hard spike. It had become momentarily forgotten in her overload and was still stiff at attention in her face.

An overwhelming urge rose up in her to pop that thick spike back into her mouth. Her port was still deliciously full of Megatron, and she wanted that same feeling of complete fullness in her mouth too. Like it had been before it was Optimus and her. It was the only thing Phage missed of her time with the Lamborghini Twins. So, if this was her only chance to indulge in old pleasures...

Optimus's digits, twining and gently carding through her omni-hair, made her hesitate.

"What are you waiting for, my spitfire?" Cooed Megatron's voice in her audio, followed by a slow lick and then a nip to the top edge. "It is so rude to leave Optimus Prime on edge like this."

Phage groaned, digits trailing the large length of Optimus's spike. Her lips followed, laying gentle kisses and cat licks up to the tip. Beneath her, Optimus shuddered. His digits fisting in her omni-hair. Behind her, Megatron made small thrusts into her port anew and began whispering words of encouragement.

"Yes. Good. Yes like that. More." His thrusts were gaining length and power. "You are wonderful at this, aren't you, my free port?"

Phage mewled as she worshiped Optimus's spike.

"Meg—atron." Optimus shuddered between breathes. "This is over."

A smirk twisted itself at the corner of Megatron's lips, eyeing Optimus from over Phage's shoulder strut. "This is over when neither of us have any tension left, Optimus." He pumped into Phage for good measure, making her moan as she sucked and kissed the head of Optimus's spike. "I think you and I have quite a bit of tension left to work out."

Phage moaned beneath him as he continued to make minor gentle thrusts into her port. Suddenly, Phage's cranium popped off of Optimus's spike and shot Megatron a befuddled gaze over her shoulder strut. "How are you still hard?"

Not breaking optic contact, Megatron nipped along her neck cables, glided down her back and bit the connectors of her door wings. Phage shuddered, mewled, then groaned as he pulled out of her port with a wet plop, leaving her feeling hollow and needing him back.

"Some of us just are not privileged to have our own femmes, now are we." His optics flickered up to Optimus. "You took mine from me."

"She was never yours to take."

"You know, Optimus." Megatron said suddenly and stood up. "You are completely right."

Somehow, those few words ran like ice through their systems. Phage twisted to get a glimpse of him as Optimus opened his.

Megatron gripped Phage's hips and hauled her up, whipped her around, then roughly deposited her right onto Optimus's lap, straddle style, plunging her onto his spike.

Several twined emotions spanned across their faces, each Megatron had the delicacy to observe and enjoy: shock, surprise, pleasurable satisfaction.

Phage was the first initiate, grinding down as she arched her back, slim arms reaching around to encircle Optimus's neck cables. Her cranium rolled backwards onto his shoulder strut, moaning loudly as she set the pace.

"There." Cooed Megatron, locking Phage in by gripping the armrests of the chair. "Now you are both reunited. Quaint, I know. I am not without a measure of mercy."

Optimus struggled to find his voice as his arms encircled Phage's waist. "We are done here, Megatron." His words lacked their usual conviction and was undone when Optimus buried his cranium against Phage's backside, between her door wings that Megatron had lavished with attention prior.

A small frown wormed its way onto Megatron's face. "We are done here when neither of us has any tension left to deter the Quest, Optimus. That is what we agreed. And you still have tension. Go on, like our mediator said. Team-building. For the Alliance."

Over Phage's shoulder, their optics caught and held. Old iron wills opposed against each other for eons. The infuriating quirk returned to Megatron's mouth.

"Mediator. Where are your diplomacy skills?"

She tried to focus on Megatron through heavy lust-hued purple optics. Megatron leaned forward and whispered into her audio receptor, "Well, you have already assisted me. Help your mech. Interface with him. Help ease his tension. Pit knows he needs it. -There! There, good femme." Slowly, Phage began working up the tempo until she was grinding down on Optimus's spike.

Prime's arms tightened around her waist as he squeezed his optics shut. Megatron observed the display, eating it up with his starving gaze. "Good!" He took two steps back and collapsed into the opposing seat. Quietly, he began stroking his spike back to attention.

"Don't hold back Optimus. You were never one for that. This isn't the place for gentle interfacing. Show me how you have been fragging your femme. How have you been showing her you love her when you no longer have an eternity to devote to her but two years?"

Something broke. Megatron was not quite sure if it was his words that broke Optimus, or that the Prime had caved to the emotions pouring through the bond he shared with Phage, but all shyness evaporated.

In rapid succession, Optimus lifted Phage up off his spike and guided her down with equal force as he positioned up, impaling her down to the base of his spike and assuredly burying himself deep into her core. As with Megatron just before, Phage writhed in Prime's hold and belted out squeals and impassioned mewls. With her back pressed against Prime's chassis, and her arms wrapped backwards to grasp his antenna in hand, she left her breasts fully exposed for Megatron's viewing. They bounced with the force of every downward thrust. Megatron kept pace with his strokes to Prime's tempo.

It was after some time that Phage finally noticed him through half-hooded optics. Between her impassioned cries, she caught optics with him. One charged, lust-filled look.

In an instant, Megatron came to a decision and stood up.

His movement caught Optimus's attention. "Megatron, what are you doing?"

Just as Phage was casting him a bemused look, he stepped forward, grabbed a her cranium and yanked her forward. Phage's small cry of protest that was immediately muffled as Megatron forced her to swallow as much of his spike as she could muster.

Letting his cranium fall back on its axis, Megatron dug his digits into Phage's mess of writhing omni-hair and let out a long contented sigh.

"Ahh—You are good at this."

The mass of tentacle appendages snaked their way up Megatron's arms and held on with a grip. "Much better—Ah!" Megatron jerked forward as Phage took at her new position with a will. One slim hand wrapped around the length of him she could not take and began to pump with expert skill. Her omni-hair coiled tighter around his arms as his hands dug in. Megatron could have sworn he heard her laugh around his spike, felt it vibrate even. His optics were nearly bulging as they landed on Prime.

The aft had the audacity to be smirking at him, optics crinkling as they only did when the glitch was smiling behind his mask, both his hands fixed lazily to her hips, but she was setting the pace as she fervently suckled Megatron's spike and bounced on and off of Optimus's spike in a rhythm familiar to her.

"She's...ah, enthusiastic."

"She's missed her time with the Twins."

_That_—was an admission from Optimus he thought he would never hear.

"I—see. Tch!" He carded his black digits deeper into her omni-hair, as much holding on as he was pulling. Her free hand snapped to his leg to steady herself, enabling her to better control her speed as she bobbed on and off of Megatron's spike and up and down on Prime's.

Megatron focused on that beautiful face and those red lips as she worked his spike. "My free port." He murmured and groaned long and hard. Finally he found the tempo, and thrust forward, forcing her to take as much of him as she could. Even when he felt her resist he pulled her down and let her go away only under his firm grip.

Phage had set the pace before. The ball was back in Megatron's court and he owned it. "You are mine, my beautiful spitfire."

He forced her to down more of his spike.

"Phage is mine, Megatron." And Optimus pulled her back off of Megatron's spike and slammed her deep onto his own.

Phage's lips hovered at his tip, her glossa teasing to take him back. A notion struck Megatron as he took in her expression. This wasn't Phage anymore, but a lust addled free downloader that the Twins had crafted and lost. Did Megatron ever love claiming lost sparks for his own.

"Last I recall," Megatron jeered as he dragged her back choking onto his spike, "its my transfluids dripping from her core."

"Not for long."

"Go ahead, Prime." Megatron huffed on a laugh. "Reclaim your ground. I will just take it back."

Suddenly, Phage shoved his spike from her mouth and groused, "I have decided that you are both worse than the Twins."

"Worse!" Megatron scoffed. "That gold plated sociopath is levels below me." Before Phage had time to contemplate and remark on that, Megatron dragged her right back down. "Isn't that right, Optimus? You were there for that gladiatorial fight."

_::What?::_

Optimus groaned behind her as Megatron picked up the pace, grinning maniacally.

"Go on, I know you remember, Prime. Before the war. The sun had reached its zenith. I had just finished dealing with Sideswipe and was engaged one-on-one with Sunstreaker. I believe the announcer said something to the extent of—the sun and the moon."

A strangled groan tore itself out from Optimus's throat. His spike throbbed needy in Phage's valve and was received in kind with her personal constricting embrace. Optimus's digits dug to her thighs possessively as he forced her to take the whole of his shaft straight to the base. Then, bending them both forward as much as he could, his arms wrapped around her waist in a fierce embrace. With her lips still wrapped around Megatron's large spike, Optimus poured his transfluids deep into her core.

Watching Optimus overload set Megatron off on his second.

For a second time, Megatron shuddered, his spike throbbing insistently in Phage's mouth. He fisted her omni-hair to force her to keep still as he shoved his spike deep down her throat, and then ejaculated his copious amounts of transfluid down her throat, forcing her to swallow his coding whether she wanted to or not.

Shuddering and sighing alternatively, Megatron was the first to withdraw and collapse in his chair across from them, legs spread for full view of his twitching, large spike. After Phage had finished gagging, there was no way of avoiding it or Megatron's lazy smile he cast her way.

In the wake of their overloads, silence reigned. Optimus refused to release Phage from his embrace or sit up, cuddling her backside.

Suddenly, Megatron leaned forward, reached out with one hand and wiped a trickle of his fluids from Phage's chin and made her lick his digit clean. She did so numbly, then eagerly. Only when he was satisfied with her work, Megatron pulled back to rest again and her omni-hair coiled around his arm, resistant to let him go but sliding off all the same in a long goodbye.

The three of them sat there a long while, Phage trapped beneath Prime and unable to look away from Megatron's solemn gaze.

Finally, Megatron's hand slide off the arm of the chair and gripped his long thick spike, and began to stroke himself stiff again. Phage's optics widened in alarm. Hardly daring to imagine, she mouthed her question to him, 'Again?'

Megatron's smile was mesmerizing. "It has been eons."

She gawked at his omission, then bemoaned her fate. Optimus shifted off her back.

"Enough, Megatron." Came Optimus's long groan. It only elicited an arched optical ridge from Megatron.

"You cannot stay entrenched in her forever, Optimus." Growled Megatron. He was met by a dark glare in return. Megatron inclined his cranium and said after a brief moment of consideration. "Fine. Have it your way."

Both Phage and Optimus snapped their attention to him as he gradually stood and closed the small distance between them. "But turn her around."

"What?" Phage squeaked.

"What now, Megatron."

His grin was wide. "Just do it, Prime."

"No!" Phage sounded off, already guessing where this was going. "No! No! A thousand times, no! We are not doing _that_!"

"You do not get a say."

"Slag I don't!" She snapped off. "Have you seen your size? You'd split me for sure."

"You regenerate."

"Fuck you."

The resounding slap that echoed around the war room left Megatron rooted to his spot, optics wide and gaping. The swift slap to her aft made Phage jump, keening, before she shot Optimus a mock pout that was returned with a certain devious look that threw Megatron off.

The moment stretched out until finally Megatron shook off his stupor. "Did you just-"

They both shot him identical coy expressions that left him slack jawed.

Slowly, Megatron shook his cranium. "_That's_ what it is then. Well then, you cannot tell me you have never fragged her aft then, Prime." Silent as ever, Optimus glared Megatron down intently until the silver mech threw his cranium back with a groan. "Come on, Optimus! Aft slapping is the most devious of your interfacing exploits! How have you lived through these eons?"

Optimus's secured Phage more tightly to his frame. "She said no, Megatron. We are done here."

"We are done when there is no tension left. And I still have tension to work out."

Without another word, Megatron grabbed Phage's breasts and began fondling them. With a lengthy sigh, her head fell backwards on to Prime's shoulder strut.

"You are worried." Megatron crooned. "I understand. Trust me, you can take my size. It will take some time-"

"No." Said Phage adamantly. "Last time I-"

"Last time?" And his optics shot to Prime.

"No not—Ahrug! Not with Optimus. With—oh never mind."

Megatron's optics narrowed. "With someone else then. They were rash, I take it. Too eager. I would be careful."

"We are not doing this. You are not going to frag my aft—Ow! Optimus!"

The slap to her thigh resounded in the war room. "Language." Prime berated.

"Come _on_!"

Suddenly Megatron kissed her, sending another swell of electric sensations tingling through her lips. She groaned into his mouth, and mewled when he pulled away. Motion from below caught her attention and her optics dropped and watched as he pumped his spike back to a stiff state.

"You know Prime, if you need help training her..."

"I do not."

"Clearly." Megatron remarked, stroking off as Optimus began thrusting into Phage anew. "You are doing a swell job. I am sorry, my spitfire. Did you want my spike? Again? So soon? I see you regarding it."

"It's hard not to when your flapping it in my face." Another slap. "Ow! Op! What did I do now?"

"Being a mediator intells not aggravating your charges. If you have nothing nice to say..."

Before another protest could fly from her mouth, Megatron snatched up a fistful of her omni-hair and shoved her back down on his spike. He began thrusting immediately, letting his cranium roll back on its axis to release a long moan. His thrusts into her mouth and down her throat were sporadic and jerky cpmpared with his earlier control and rhythm.

"Oh, Cybertron." Megatron moaned. "Optimus, remind me next time I see the Twins to thank them."

"That would not look good."

"Ugh. Then I will find another way. Her technique is-" he paused to shudder and groan as Phage sucked him hard and did something with her glossa. "Impeccable."

Optimus grunted, thrusting away into her leaking port in short rapid bursts.

Abruptly, Megatron pulled out of her mouth with a loud sucking pop and grabbed her breasts. "Hold them." He demanded, forcing her to do just that. When he was satisfied he drove his hard spike between her breasts. "Keep them squeezed together just so. Yes. Yes, good. Now-" He forced her cranium down so that as he thrust up the head of his spike drove into her waiting mouth. "Perfect!"

He held her cranium in place as he took his passions out on her and Optimus did the same.

"Pit Prime, how do you _find_ them?" Megatron inquired after some time of wild indulgences. He wasn't expecting an answer and never got one. "Aft, a rack _and_ a pretty face." His pace grew more frantic. "Cybertronian femmes are usually so small. Is that a smile? Are you _smiling_? Smug glitch."

Optimus tossed his cranium carelessly back against the chair and let out a soft uncharacteristic laugh.

Strangled unintelligent syllables poured from Megatron's vocal processor. He jerked back from the soft malleable titty frag and grabbed his throbbing spike. Phage had enough time to jerk her face aside before he came, spurting more of his transfluid across her face and coating her breasts. The amount that could still pour out of him boggled her mind, leaving her gaping up at him in wonder while Optimus still fragged her port from behind.

Gently Megatron guided her cranium forward, presenting her with the mess that was his spike. Silently, he tapped the head against her lips and she obeyed. Her bright delicious freedom red lips parted. Her glossa slipped out, licked his head tantalizingly slow, giving him a show as she cleaned his spike. Never once losing optic contact with him.

He wanted to frag that mouth of hers again. Wanted to see those lips engulf his spike. Seductress. Exotic mecha. His exotic seductress. His.

It was Megatron that broke optic contact first, carding his digits through her omni-hair and moaning as she finished her work and kept sucking. Megatron had to shove her off.

She was bouncing crazily as Optimus fragged her, every pistoned motion exaggerated by her omni-hair and bouncing breasts. Megatron knelt before his latest acquisition and began rubbing his fluids into her living metal skin. Phage did not stop him. Could not say a word while Optimus was fragging her.

His spitfire.

Their toy.

"Do not worry." Megatron purred, wiping a glob of his fluids off her left breast with his fingertips before dipping each one individually into her mouth. Mesmerized, he watched her intently as she fell into a lustful lull, sucking each finger clean with expertise. "I will work you up to fit my spike in your aft."

The haze in her optics broke, widening in alarm.

A disarming smile broke across his face that did little to settle her nerves. "I am sure Optimus will love that." He did not miss how the tempo of Prime's speed increased. Nor how Phage had to throw up her arms again to wrap around Prime's antennas for support and began grinding down to met his upward thrusts. "Then next time, _mediator_, we will try a more up close and personal team building experience."

Optimus's second overload was announced by a strangulated roar. Megatron refused to break optic contact with Phage as Optimus pistoned upwards, pouring more of his transfluids deep into her core. So much between Megatron's and Optimus's that the white substance leaked out of her port around Prime's thick spike and stained the their legs, the chair and the floor.

Casually, Megatron reached out and flicked her port's external node. Phage shrieked, trying to jerk upwards violently to escape his grasp, and failed. The strength in Optimus's hands kept her prisoner in his lap. Seizing on his opportunity, Megatron persisted in his endeavors until he was certain that she crested her latest overload.

After her muscles subsided, Phage went rag doll in Optimus's embrace. Auxiliary air vents whirling to life to cool her overheated systems.

Letting off, Megatron slunked back to his chair and collapsed into it for the second time.

After a long respite, Megatron murmured, "That's three to two, Optimus."

Across the way, Optimus's optics slowly opened and eyed Megatron in the next chair over. "Three-two what Megatron?"

"Overloads, Prime. Overloads. You are behind one. I thought the mediator should know. For recording keeping."

A low hum coasted from Prime. "You said you have not interfaced in eons."

"Yes. It tends to be hard to connect when I am surrounded by such ambitious mechs."

"Phage and I have a healthy personal life."

Megatron rolled his optics. "You frag a lot. I am not surprised. She is insatiable."

"Meaning your crude record keeping is inaccurate from the start."

"Oh come off it. You lost this round."

Carefully Optimus reclined back, craning his neck to glimpse Phage. The femme was drifting off into recharge, coasting in the blurry in-between. Optimus adjusted her, pulling her boneless frame into his lap in a bridal style embrace and hugged her close.

Megatron made to say something more and Prime shushed him. He balked at the treatment, glowered then conceded as Phage drifted off listening to Optimus's spark pulse.

"About our destination, Optimus." Megatron intoned quietly.

"Hmm...Now?" He came alert. "Really?"

"Yes really." Megatron grit. "It _is_ rather important."

"Later."

"Not later. Now. While we're cooling down. If we went over the _**Ark's**_ old star charts perhaps we could locate a planet with our specifications."

"Muhjuthapur."

Both mechs attention dropped to Phage resting against Optimus, half dead to the world. Carefully Optimus checked on her, murmuring quietly into her audio receptor.

The same unintelligent babble murmured pass her lips. "Juthapur."

Megatron shook his cranium and Optimus shrugged.

"As I was saying," Megatron began, "the _**Ark's**_ old star charts."

"The ones from four million years ago."

"Yes."

"Those charts are four million years inaccurate."

If the quiet debate went anywhere else it was all white noise to Phage as she drifted off into recharge with nagging wakeful worries chasing her all the way.


End file.
